3 10 361 https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VII_Public_Dinners/1835-04-07_Sketches_of_London_No.VII_Public_Dinners.pdf f7f7af887d4eb0406d927410d95ee4ae Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350407 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. All public dinners in London—from the Lord Mayor's annual banquet at Guildhall, to the chimney-sweepers' "hanniversary" at White Conduit-house; from the Goldsmiths' to the Butchers'; from the Sheriffs' to the Licensed Victuallers—are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description, however, we think the annual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing. At a Company's dinner the people are nearly all alike—regular old stagers who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be laughed at; at a political dinner everybody is disagreeable and inclined to speechify—much the same thing, by the bye; but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions: the wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion sufficient to counterbalance even these disadvantages. Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this description—"Indigent Orphans' Friends' Benevolent Institution," we think it is. The name of the charity is a line or two longer, but you have forgotten the rest. You have a distinct recollection, however, that you purchased a ticket at the solicitation of some charitable friend, and you deposit yourself in a hackney-coach, the driver of which—no doubt that you may do the thing in style —turns a deaf ear to your earnest entreaties to be set down at the corner of Great Queen-street, and persists in carrying you to the very door of the Freemasons', round which crowded people are assembled to witness the entrance of the indigent orphans' friends. You hear great speculations, as you pay the fare, on the possibility of your being the Noble Lord who is announced to fill the chair on the occasion, and are highly gratified to hear it eventually decided that you are only a "wocalist." The first thing that strikes you on your entrance is the astonishing importance of the committee. You observe a door on the first landing, carefully guarded by two waiters, in and out of which stout gentlemen, with very red faces, keep running with a degree of speed highly unbecoming the gravity of persons of their years and corpulency. You pause, quite alarmed at the bustle; and thinking, in your innocence, that two or three people must have been carried out of the dining-room in fits at the very least. You are immediately undeceived by the waiter—"Up stairs, if you please, sir; this is the committee room." Up stairs you go, accordingly; wondering as you mount, what the duties of the committee can be and whether they ever do anything beyond confusing each other, and running over the waiters. Having deposited your hat and cloak, and received a remarkably small scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which as a matter of course you lose before you require it again), you enter the hall, down which there are four long tables for the less distinguished guests, with a cross table on a raised platform at the upper end for the reception of the very particular friends of the indigent orphans. Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you. Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of Sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances. Melancholy-looking salt-cellars, and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant intervals on the cloth, and the knives and forks look as if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession of George the First; the musicians are scraping and grating and screwing tremendously—playing no notes but notes of preparation; and several gentlemen are gliding along the sides of the tables, looking into plate after plate with frantic eagerness, the expression of their countenances growing more and more dismal as they meet with everybody’s card but their own. You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and—not being in the habit of attending public dinners—are somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which your eye rests. One of its principal members appears to be a little man, with a long and rather inflamed face, and grey hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology for a neck-kerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar appellation of—"Fitz." Near him is a stout man in a white neck-kerchief and buff waistcoat; with shiny dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers; and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat. There is something peculiar in their air and manner, though you could hardly describe what it is; you cannot divest yourself of the idea that they have come for some other purpose than mere eating and drinking. You have no time to debate the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arranged in lines down the room, placing the dishes on table) retire to the lower end; the dark man in the blue coat and bright buttons, who has the direction of the music, looks up to the gallery, and calls out "band" in a very loud voice; out burst the orchestra, up rise the visitors; in march fourteen stewards, each with a long wand in his hand, like the evil genius in a pantomime; then the Chairman, then the titled visitors; they all make their way up the room, as fast as they can, bowing, and smiling, and smirking, and looking remarkably amiable. The applause ceases; grace is said; the clatter of plates and dishes begins; and every one appears highly gratified either with the presence of the distinguished visitors, or the commencement of the anxiously-expected dinner. As to the dinner itself—the mere dinner—it goes off much the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity—waiters take plates of turbot away to get lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of lobster-sauce without turbot. People who can carve poultry are great fools if they own it, and people who can’t have no wish to learn—the knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the violoncello—the substantials disappear—moulds of jelly vanish like lightning—hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent exertions— people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible—old gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly favoured in this respect—every one appears disposed to become talkative—and the hum of conversation is loud and general. "Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for Non nobis," shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs—a toast-master’s shirt-front, waistcoat, and neck-kerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit three distinct shades of cloudy-white.—"Pray, silence, gentlemen, for Non nobis." The singers, whom you discover to be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity at first, after "pitching" their voices immediately begin too tooing most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst into occasional cries of—"Sh Sh-waiters! Silence— waiters." "Stand still, waiters—keep back, waiters." and other exorcisms, delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The grace is soon concluded, and the company resume their seats. The uninitiated portion of the guests applaud Non nobis as vehemently as if it were a capital comic song, greatly to the scandal and indignation of the regular diners, who immediately attempt to quell this sacrilegious approbation, by cries of "Hush, hush," whereupon the others, mistaking these sounds for hisses, applaud more tumultuously than before, and, by way of placing their approval beyond the possibility of doubt, shout "Encore!" most vociferously. The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:—"Gentlemen, charge your glasses, if you please." Decanters having been handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular, ascending scale:—"Gentlemen—air—you—all charged? Pray—silence —gentlemen—for—the cha-i-r." The Chairman rises, and, after stating that he feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he is about to propose with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze of sentences, and flounders about in the most extraordinary manner, presenting a lamentable spectacle of mystified humanity, until he arrives at the words, "constitutional sovereign of these realms," at which elderly gentlemen exclaim "Bravo!" and hammer the table tremendously with their knife-handles. "Under any circumstances, it would give him the greatest pride, it would give him the greatest pleasure—he might almost say, it would afford him satisfaction [cheers] to propose that toast. What must be his feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing, that he has received her Majesty’s commands to apply to the Treasurer of her Majesty’s Household, for her Majesty’s annual donation of 25l. in aid of the funds of this charity." This announcement (which has been regularly made by every chairman since the first foundation of the charity forty-two years ago) calls forth the most vociferous applause; the toast is drunk with a great deal of cheering and knocking; and "God save the King" is sung by the "professional gentlemen;" the unprofessional Gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as "perfectly electrical." The other "loyal and patriotic" toasts having been drunk with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been sung by the man with the small neckerchief, and a sentimental ditto by the second of the party, we come to the most important toast of the evening—"Prosperity to the Charity." Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper phraseology, and express our regret at being "precluded from giving even the substance of the Noble Lord’s observations." Suffice it to say, that the speech, which is somewhat of the longest, is rapturously received, and the toast having been drunk, the stewards (looking more important than ever) leave the room, and presently return, heading a procession of indigent orphans, boys and girls, who walk round the room, curtseying, and bowing, and treading on each other’s heels, and looking very much as if they would like a glass of wine apiece, to the high gratification of the company generally, and especially of the Lady Patronesses in the gallery. Exeunt children, and re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his hand. The band plays a lively air; the majority of the company put their hands in their pockets, and look rather serious; and the noise of sovereigns rattling on crockery, is heard from all parts of the room. After a short interval, occupied in singing and toasting, the Secretary puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to read the report and list of subscriptions the latter being listened to with great attention. "Mr. Smith, one guinea; Mr. Tompkins one guinea— Mr. Wilson one guinea—Mr. Hickson one guinea—Mr. Nixon, one guinea—Mr. Charles Nixon one guinea—[hear, hear!]—Mr. James Nixon one guinea —Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous applause]. Lord Fitz Winkle, the chairman of the day, in addition to an annual donation of fifteen pounds—thirty guineas [prolonged knocking; several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses in the vehemence of their approbation]. Lady Fitz Winkle, in addition to an annual donation of ten pound—twenty pound" [protracted knocking and shouts of "Bravo!"]. The list being at length concluded, the chairman rises, and proposes the health of the secretary, than whom he knows no more zealous or estimable individual. The secretary, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more excellent individual than the chairman—except the senior officer of the charity, whose health he begs to propose. The senior officer, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more worthy man than the secretary—except Mr. Walker, the auditor, whose health he begs to propose. Mr. Walker, in returning thanks, discovers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the senior officer is inferior—and so they go on toasting and lauding and thanking: the only other toast of importance being "The Lady Patronesses now present," on which all the gentlemen turn their faces towards the ladies’ gallery, shouting tremendously; and little priggish men, who have imbibed more wine than usual, kiss their hands and exhibit distressing contortions of visage, supposed to be intended for ogling. We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that we have hardly time to add one word by way of grace. We can only entreat our readers not to imagine because we have attempted to extract some amusement from a charity dinner, that we are at all disposed to underrate either the excellence of the Benevolent Institutions, with which London abounds, or the estimable motives of those who support them. (Footnote) The sketch entitled "Bellamy's," which we announced as a continuation of "The House," shall form the next number of our series. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners.' The Evening Chronicle (7 April 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350407/010/0001</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-04-07 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VII, Public Dinners' (7 April 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-07_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVII_Public_Dinners</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (7 April 1835). Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. All public dinners in London—from the Lord Mayor's annual banquet at Guildhall, to the chimney-sweepers' "hanniversary" at White Conduit-house; from the Goldsmiths' to the Butchers'; from the Sheriffs' to the Licensed Victuallers—are amusing scenes. Of all entertainments of this description, however, we think the annual dinner of some public charity is the most amusing. At a Company's dinner the people are nearly all alike—regular old stagers who make it a matter of business, and a thing not to be laughed at; at a political dinner everybody is disagreeable and inclined to speechify—much the same thing, by the bye; but at a charity dinner you see people of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions: the wine may not be remarkably special, to be sure, and we have heard some hard-hearted monsters grumble at the collection; but we really think the amusement to be derived from the occasion sufficient to counterbalance even these disadvantages.  Let us suppose you are induced to attend a dinner of this description—"Indigent Orphans' Friends' Benevolent Institution," we think it is. The name of the charity is a line or two longer, but you have forgotten the rest. You have a distinct recollection, however, that you purchased a ticket at the solicitation of some charitable friend, and you deposit yourself in a hackney-coach, the driver of which—no doubt that you may do the thing in style —turns a deaf ear to your earnest entreaties to be set down at the corner of Great Queen-street, and persists in carrying you to the very door of the Freemasons', round which crowded people are assembled to witness the entrance of the indigent orphans' friends. You hear great speculations, as you pay the fare, on the possibility of your being the Noble Lord who is announced to fill the chair on the occasion, and are highly gratified to hear it eventually decided that you are only a "wocalist." The first thing that strikes you on your entrance is the astonishing importance of the committee. You observe a door on the first landing, carefully guarded by two waiters, in and out of which stout gentlemen, with very red faces, keep running with a degree of speed highly unbecoming the gravity of persons of their years and corpulency. You pause, quite alarmed at the bustle; and thinking, in your innocence, that two or three people must have been carried out of the dining-room in fits at the very least. You are immediately undeceived by the waiter—"Up stairs, if you please, sir; this is the committee room." Up stairs you go, accordingly; wondering as you mount, what the duties of the committee can be and whether they ever do anything beyond confusing each other, and running over the waiters. Having deposited your hat and cloak, and received a remarkably small scrap of pasteboard in exchange (which as a matter of course you lose before you require it again), you enter the hall, down which there are four long tables for the less distinguished guests, with a cross table on a raised platform at the upper end for the reception of the very particular friends of the indigent orphans. Being fortunate enough to find a plate without anybody’s card in it, you wisely seat yourself at once, and have a little leisure to look about you.  Waiters, with wine-baskets in their hands, are placing decanters of Sherry down the tables, at very respectable distances. Melancholy-looking salt-cellars, and decayed vinegar-cruets, which might have belonged to the parents of the indigent orphans in their time, are scattered at distant intervals on the cloth, and the knives and forks look as if they had done duty at every public dinner in London since the accession of George the First; the musicians are scraping and grating and screwing tremendously—playing no notes but notes of preparation; and several gentlemen are gliding along the sides of the tables, looking into plate after plate with frantic eagerness, the expression of their countenances growing more and more dismal as they meet with everybody’s card but their own. You turn round to take a look at the table behind you, and—not being in the habit of attending public dinners—are somewhat struck by the appearance of the party on which your eye rests. One of its principal members appears to be a little man, with a long and rather inflamed face, and grey hair brushed bolt upright in front; he wears a wisp of black silk round his neck, without any stiffener, as an apology for a neck-kerchief, and is addressed by his companions by the familiar appellation of—"Fitz." Near him is a stout man in a white neck-kerchief and buff waistcoat; with shiny dark hair, cut very short in front, and a great, round, healthy-looking face, on which he studiously preserves a half sentimental simper. Next him, again, is a large-headed man, with black hair and bushy whiskers; and opposite them are two or three others, one of whom is a little round-faced person, in a dress-stock and blue under-waistcoat. There is something peculiar in their air and manner, though you could hardly describe what it is; you cannot divest yourself of the idea that they have come for some other purpose than mere eating and drinking. You have no time to debate the matter, however, for the waiters (who have been arranged in lines down the room, placing the dishes on table) retire to the lower end; the dark man in the blue coat and bright buttons, who has the direction of the music, looks up to the gallery, and calls out "band" in a very loud voice; out burst the orchestra, up rise the visitors; in march fourteen stewards, each with a long wand in his hand, like the evil genius in a pantomime; then the Chairman, then the titled visitors; they all make their way up the room, as fast as they can, bowing, and smiling, and smirking, and looking remarkably amiable. The applause ceases; grace is said; the clatter of plates and dishes begins; and every one appears highly gratified either with the presence of the distinguished visitors, or the commencement of the anxiously-expected dinner. As to the dinner itself—the mere dinner—it goes off much the same everywhere. Tureens of soup are emptied with awful rapidity—waiters take plates of turbot away to get lobster-sauce, and bring back plates of lobster-sauce without turbot. People who can carve poultry are great fools if they own it, and people who can’t have no wish to learn—the knives and forks form a pleasing accompaniment to Auber’s music, and Auber’s music would form a pleasing accompaniment to the dinner, if you could hear anything besides the violoncello—the substantials disappear—moulds of jelly vanish like lightning—hearty eaters wipe their foreheads, and appear rather overcome by their recent exertions— people who have looked very cross hitherto, become remarkably bland, and ask you to take wine in the most friendly manner possible—old gentlemen direct your attention to the ladies’ gallery, and take great pains to impress you with the fact that the charity is always peculiarly favoured in this respect—every one appears disposed to become talkative—and the hum of conversation is loud and general. "Pray, silence, gentlemen, if you please, for Non nobis," shouts the toast-master with stentorian lungs—a toast-master’s shirt-front, waistcoat, and neck-kerchief, by-the-bye, always exhibit three distinct shades of cloudy-white.—"Pray, silence, gentlemen, for Non nobis." The singers, whom you discover to be no other than the very party that excited your curiosity at first, after "pitching" their voices immediately begin too tooing most dismally, on which the regular old stagers burst into occasional cries of—"Sh Sh-waiters! Silence— waiters." "Stand still, waiters—keep back, waiters." and other exorcisms, delivered in a tone of indignant remonstrance. The grace is soon concluded, and the company resume their seats.  The uninitiated portion of the guests applaud Non nobis as vehemently as if it were a capital comic song, greatly to the scandal and indignation of the regular diners, who immediately attempt to quell this sacrilegious approbation, by cries of "Hush, hush," whereupon the others, mistaking these sounds for hisses, applaud more tumultuously than before, and, by way of placing their approval beyond the possibility of doubt, shout "Encore!" most vociferously. The moment the noise ceases, up starts the toast-master:—"Gentlemen, charge your glasses, if you please." Decanters having been handed about, and glasses filled, the toast-master proceeds, in a regular, ascending scale:—"Gentlemen—air—you—all charged? Pray—silence —gentlemen—for—the cha-i-r." The Chairman rises, and, after stating that he feels it quite unnecessary to preface the toast he is about to propose with any observations whatever, wanders into a maze of sentences, and flounders about in the most extraordinary manner, presenting a lamentable spectacle of mystified humanity, until he arrives at the words, "constitutional sovereign of these realms," at which elderly gentlemen exclaim "Bravo!" and hammer the table tremendously with their knife-handles. "Under any circumstances, it would give him the greatest pride, it would give him the greatest pleasure—he might almost say, it would afford him satisfaction [cheers] to propose that toast. What must be his feelings, then, when he has the gratification of announcing, that he has received her Majesty’s commands to apply to the Treasurer of her Majesty’s Household, for her Majesty’s annual donation of 25l. in aid of the funds of this charity." This announcement (which has been regularly made by every chairman since the first foundation of the charity forty-two years ago) calls forth the most vociferous applause; the toast is drunk with a great deal of cheering and knocking; and "God save the King" is sung by the "professional gentlemen;" the unprofessional Gentlemen joining in the chorus, and giving the national anthem an effect which the newspapers, with great justice, describe as "perfectly electrical." The other "loyal and patriotic" toasts having been drunk with all due enthusiasm, a comic song having been sung by the man with the small neckerchief, and a sentimental ditto by the second of the party, we come to the most important toast of the evening—"Prosperity to the Charity." Here again we are compelled to adopt newspaper phraseology, and express our regret at being "precluded from giving even the substance of the Noble Lord’s observations." Suffice it to say, that the speech, which is somewhat of the longest, is rapturously received, and the toast having been drunk, the stewards (looking more important than ever) leave the room, and presently return, heading a procession of indigent orphans, boys and girls, who walk round the room, curtseying, and bowing, and treading on each other’s heels, and looking very much as if they would like a glass of wine apiece, to the high gratification of the company generally, and especially of the Lady Patronesses in the gallery. Exeunt children, and re-enter stewards, each with a blue plate in his hand. The band plays a lively air; the majority of the company put their hands in their pockets, and look rather serious; and the noise of sovereigns rattling on crockery, is heard from all parts of the room. After a short interval, occupied in singing and toasting, the Secretary puts on his spectacles, and proceeds to read the report and list of subscriptions the latter being listened to with great attention. "Mr. Smith, one guinea; Mr. Tompkins one guinea— Mr. Wilson one guinea—Mr. Hickson one guinea—Mr.  Nixon, one guinea—Mr. Charles Nixon one guinea—[hear, hear!]—Mr. James Nixon one guinea —Mr. Thomas Nixon, one pound one [tremendous applause]. Lord Fitz Winkle, the chairman of the day, in addition to an annual donation of fifteen pounds—thirty guineas [prolonged knocking; several gentlemen knock the stems off their wine-glasses in the vehemence of their approbation]. Lady Fitz Winkle, in addition to an annual donation of ten pound—twenty pound" [protracted knocking and shouts of "Bravo!"]. The list being at length concluded, the chairman rises, and proposes the health of the secretary, than whom he knows no more zealous or estimable individual. The secretary, in returning thanks, observes that he knows no more excellent individual than the chairman—except the senior officer of the charity, whose health he begs to propose. The senior officer, in returning thanks, observes that >he knows no more worthy man than the secretary—except Mr. Walker, the auditor, whose health he begs to propose.  Mr. Walker, in returning thanks, discovers some other estimable individual, to whom alone the senior officer is inferior—and so they go on toasting and lauding and thanking: the only other toast of importance being "The Lady Patronesses now present," on which all the gentlemen turn their faces towards the ladies’ gallery, shouting tremendously; and little priggish men, who have imbibed more wine than usual, kiss their hands and exhibit distressing contortions of visage, supposed to be intended for ogling. We have protracted our dinner to so great a length, that we have hardly time to add one word by way of grace. We can only entreat our readers not to imagine because we have attempted to extract some amusement from a charity dinner, that we are at all disposed to underrate either the excellence of the Benevolent Institutions, with which London abounds, or the estimable motives of those who support them. (Footnote) The sketch entitled "Bellamy's," which we announced as a continuation of "The House," shall form the next number of our series.  https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._VIII_Bellamy_s/1835-04-11_Sketches_of_London_No.VIII_Bellamys.pdf 98d82c097f09f34b047c861931964c31 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350411 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. In redemptions of the promise which we appended to the last number of our series, we now propose to introduce our readers to Bellamy's kitchen, or in other words, to the refreshment room, common to both houses of Parliament, where Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Destructives, Peers and Reporters, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature comforts; and from whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House is on the point of dividing; either to give their "conscientious votes" on questions of which they are conscientiously innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance of their wine-inspired fancies in boisterous shorts of "Divide," occasionally varied with a little howling, barking and crowing, or other ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry. When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present temporary House of Commons leads to the place we are describing, you will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand with tables spread for dining, neither of these is the kitchen, although they are both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to your left, up these half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase, however, we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to the steady, honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole occupant. Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old fellow's name, for if Nicholas isn't a public man, who is?—and public men's names are public property). Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy's, and had held the same place, dressed exactly in the same mannor, and said precisely the same things ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remember. An excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivaled compounder of salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-water and lemon—a special mixer of cold grog and punch, and, above all, an unequalled judge of cheese. If the old man have such a thing as vanity in his composition, this is certainly his pride; and if it be possible to imagine that anything in this world could disturb his impenetrable calmness, we should say it would be the doubting his judgement on this important point. We needn't tell you all this however, for if you have an atom of observation, one glance at his sleek knowing-looking head and face—his prim, white neck-kerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been regularly folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible degrees into a small-plaited shirt-frill, and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could convey. Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he can't see the kitchen as he used to do in the old house; there, one window of his glass-case used to open into the room, and many a time, long after day-break on a summer's morning, have we amused ourself in drawing the cautious old man out by asking deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh, and Heaven knows who beside, which he would answer with manifest delight, always inserting a "Mister" before every name. Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea of the degeneracy of the times. He seldom expresses any political opinions, but we managed to ascertain, just before the passing of the Reform Bill, that Nicholas was a thorough Reformer. What was our astonishment to discover, shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! 'Twas very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, other from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in that respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable. We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined at home. The Rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put together. He took no wine; drank table beer by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Milbank-street, for his whiskey and water, and what was the consequence? Why the concern lost—actually lost by their patronage. A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself. We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his resolution intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out by force. However, he was got out— here he is again, looking, as he always does, as if he had been in a band box ever since last session. There he is at his old post every night, just as we have described him: and as characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may he be there say we. The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the further end of the room, have been constant guests here for many years past, and one of them has feasted within these walls many a time with the most brilliant characters of a brilliant period. He has gone up to the other house since then: the greater part of his boon companions have shared Yorick's fate, and his visits to Bellamy's are comparatively few. If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly have dined? A second solid mass of rump-steak has disappeared, and he eat the first in four minutes and three-quarters by the clock over the window. Was there ever such a perfect personification of Falstaff? Mark the air with which he gloats over this Stilton as he removes the napkin which has been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous gravy of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which has been fetched expressly for him in the pewter pot. Listen to the hoarse sound of that voice kept down as it is by layers of solids, and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect picture of a regular gourmond; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you would pitch upon as having been tho partner of Sheridan's Parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney coach that took him home, and the Involuntary upsetter of the whole party? What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that of the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at the same table, and who, elevating a little cracked bantum sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else's at the commencement of every sentence he utters. "The Captain," as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy's; much addicted to stopping "after the house is up" (an inexpiable crime in Jane's eyes), and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water. The old Peer—or rather, the old man; for his peerage is of recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot-punch brought him. The other damns and drinks, and drinks and damns and smokes—Members arrive every moment in a great bustle to report that "The Chancellor of the Exchequer's up," and to get glasses of brandy and water to sustain them during the division—people who have ordered supper countermand it, and prepare to go down stairs, when suddenly a bell is heard to ring with tremendous violence, and a cry of "Di-vi-sion" is heard in the passage. This is enough; away rush the members pell-mell; the room is cleared in an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear the creaking of the last boot on the last stair, and we are left alone with the Leviathan of Rump-steaks. We are sensible that we owe some apology to many of our readers for selecting for the second time, a subject involving allusions which they may not understand. If this be the case, we hope they will not object to our having written on these occasions for those who are more particularly connected with, or interested in, the scenes we have attempts to sketch, on our assurance that it always has been, and always will be, our object to sketch people and places which all our readers, in common with ourselves, have had opportunities of observing. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's.' The Evening Chronicle (11 April 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's' Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (11 April 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350411/031/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-04-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. VIII, Bellamy's' (11 April 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoVIII_Bellamys</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. In redemptions of the promise which we appended to the last number of our series, we now propose to introduce our readers to Bellamy's kitchen, or in other words, to the refreshment room, common to both houses of Parliament, where Ministerialists and Oppositionists, Whigs and Tories, Radicals and Destructives, Peers and Reporters, strangers from the gallery, and the more favoured strangers from below the bar, are alike at liberty to resort; where divers honourable members prove their perfect independence by remaining during the whole of a heavy debate, solacing themselves with the creature comforts; and from whence they are summoned by whippers-in, when the House is on the point of dividing; either to give their "conscientious votes" on questions of which they are conscientiously innocent of knowing anything whatever, or to find a vent for the playful exuberance of their wine-inspired fancies in boisterous shorts of "Divide," occasionally varied with a little howling, barking and crowing, or other ebullitions of senatorial pleasantry.  When you have ascended the narrow staircase which, in the present temporary House of Commons leads to the place we are describing, you will probably observe a couple of rooms on your right hand with tables spread for dining, neither of these is the kitchen, although they are both devoted to the same purpose; the kitchen is further on to your left, up these half-dozen stairs. Before we ascend the staircase, however, we must request you to pause in front of this little bar-place with the sash-windows; and beg your particular attention to the steady, honest-looking old fellow in black, who is its sole occupant. Nicholas (we do not mind mentioning the old fellow's name, for if Nicholas isn't a public man, who is?—and public men's names are public property). Nicholas is the butler of Bellamy's, and had held the same place, dressed exactly in the same mannor, and said precisely the same things ever since the oldest of its present visitors can remember. An excellent servant Nicholas is—an unrivaled compounder of salad-dressing—an admirable preparer of soda-water and lemon—a special mixer of cold grog and punch, and, above all, an unequalled judge of cheese. If the old man have such a thing as vanity in his composition, this is certainly his pride; and if it be possible to imagine that anything in this world could disturb his impenetrable calmness, we should say it would be the doubting his judgement on this important point. We needn't tell you all this however, for if you have an atom of observation, one glance at his sleek knowing-looking head and face—his prim, white neck-kerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been regularly folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible degrees into a small-plaited shirt-frill, and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could convey. Nicholas is rather out of his element now; he can't see the kitchen as he used to do in the old house; there, one window of his glass-case used to open into the room, and many a time, long after day-break on a summer's morning, have we amused ourself in drawing the cautious old man out by asking deferential questions about Sheridan, and Percival, and Castlereagh, and Heaven knows who beside, which he would answer with manifest delight, always inserting a "Mister" before every name. Nicholas, like all men of his age and standing, has a great idea of the degeneracy of the times. He seldom expresses any political opinions, but we managed to ascertain, just before the passing of the Reform Bill, that Nicholas was a thorough Reformer. What was our astonishment to discover, shortly after the meeting of the first reformed Parliament, that he was a most inveterate and decided Tory! 'Twas very odd: some men change their opinions from necessity, other from expediency, others from inspiration; but that Nicholas should undergo any change in that respect, was an event we had never contemplated, and should have considered impossible. His strong opinion against the clause which empowered the metropolitan districts to return Members to Parliament, too, was perfectly unaccountable. We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined at home. The Rascals! As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional. Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put together. He took no wine; drank table beer by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Milbank-street, for his whiskey and water, and what was the consequence? Why the concern lost—actually lost by their patronage. A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself. We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his resolution intention of falling with the floor. He must have been got out by force. However, he was got out— here he is again, looking, as he always does, as if he had been in a band box ever since last session. There he is at his old post every night, just as we have described him: and as characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may he be there say we.  The two persons who are seated at the table in the corner, at the further end of the room, have been constant guests here for many years past, and one of them has feasted within these walls many a time with the most brilliant characters of a brilliant period. He has gone up to the other house since then: the greater part of his boon companions have shared Yorick's fate, and his visits to Bellamy's are comparatively few. If he really be eating his supper now, at what hour can he possibly have dined? A second solid mass of rump-steak has disappeared, and he eat the first in four minutes and three-quarters by the clock over the window. Was there ever such a perfect personification of Falstaff? Mark the air with which he gloats over this Stilton as he removes the napkin which has been placed beneath his chin to catch the superfluous gravy of the steak, and with what gusto he imbibes the porter which has been fetched expressly for him in the pewter pot. Listen to the hoarse sound of that voice kept down as it is by layers of solids, and deep draughts of rich wine, and tell us if you ever saw such a perfect picture of a regular gourmond; and whether he is not exactly the man whom you would pitch upon as having been tho partner of Sheridan's Parliamentary carouses, the volunteer driver of the hackney coach that took him home, and the Involuntary upsetter of the whole party? What an amusing contrast between his voice and appearance, and that of the spare, squeaking old man, who sits at the same table, and who, elevating a little cracked bantum sort of voice to its highest pitch, invokes damnation upon his own eyes or somebody else's at the commencement of every sentence he utters. "The Captain," as they call him, is a very old frequenter of Bellamy's; much addicted to stopping "after the house is up" (an inexpiable crime in Jane's eyes), and a complete walking reservoir of spirits and water. The old Peer—or rather, the old man; for his peerage is of recent date—has a huge tumbler of hot-punch brought him. The other damns and drinks, and drinks and damns and smokes—Members arrive every moment in a great bustle to report that "The Chancellor of the Exchequer's up," and to get glasses of brandy and water to sustain them during the division—people who have ordered supper countermand it, and prepare to go down stairs, when suddenly a bell is heard to ring with tremendous violence, and a cry of "Di-vi-sion" is heard in the passage. This is enough; away rush the members pell-mell; the room is cleared in an instant; the noise rapidly dies away; you hear the creaking of the last boot on the last stair, and we are left alone with the Leviathan of Rump-steaks.  We are sensible that we owe some apology to many of our readers for selecting for the second time, a subject involving allusions which they may not understand. If this be the case, we hope they will not object to our having written on these occasions for those who are more particularly connected with, or interested in, the scenes we have attempts to sketch, on our assurance that it always has been, and always will be, our object to sketch people and places which all our readers, in common with ourselves, have had opportunities of observing. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._X_Thoughts_About_People/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.X_Thoughts_About_People.pdf 907c86fa7960b5d47f2fd76099744ebc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350423 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. 'Tis strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself, and he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There really are a very numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends; and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind to bring before it with startling reality associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld, too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long since forgotten such thoughts, old country friends have died or emigrated, former correspondents have become lost like themselves in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city, and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance. We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately set down in our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall thin pale person in a black coat, scanty grey trowsers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for the day was fine; but evidently because he always carried one to the office in the morning; and he walked up and down before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion—just as he walks to the office every morning from the back settlements of Islington. It was Monday—Easter Monday; he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk, and was walking here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that even now he didn't exactly know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded; his spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest;—altogether there was something in his manner and appearance which told us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort has no variety. We almost saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on the one which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his desk to save the other. There he sits till five o’clock, only raising his head when some one enters the counting house, or when in the midst of some difficult calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of glass; working the day through as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is almost as monotonous as his own existence. About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts from his accustomed stool, and again changing his coat proceeds to his usual dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he's a regular customer— and after inquiring, "What’s in the best cut?" and "what was up last," he orders a small plate of roast beef with greens, and half a pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had "two heads" yesterday, with the additional enormity of "a cheese" the day before. This important point being settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he's at dinner he appears to eat it with much greater zest; balancing it against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two, alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up he produces a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his waistcoat pocket (first deducting a penny for the waiter) and returns to the office, from which, if it's not Foreign Post night, he again sallies forth in about half an hour. He then walks home at his usual pace to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea; perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his landlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes there's a letter or two to take up to his employer’s in Bernard-street, Russell-square, and then the wealthy man of business hearing his voice, calls out from the dining-parlour, "Come in, Mr. Smith,"—and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at the feet of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being condescendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which, he backs and slides out of the room in a state of nervous agitation, from which he does not perfectly recover until he finds himself once more in the Islington-road. Poor harmless creatures these men are; contented, but not happy; broken-spirited and humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure. Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them have neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who, from some cause, real or imaginary—generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich and their relations poor—grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near miserable. You may see such men as these any where; you will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their dinners; at theatres by their always sitting in the same place, and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them; at church by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their getting cross at whist, and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, collecting books, and plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own gratification as to annoy those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three Clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew perhaps—for some little assistance and relief, and then he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortation with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Bible Society; and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next. Next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen, and cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organized body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects whenever it pleased them to take offence in their heads, and staves in their hands. They are only bound now by indentures; and, as to their valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the New Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in a police-office, and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever such beautiful attempts at the grand and magnificent as they display in their own proper persons! We walked down the Strand a Sunday or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, and they were on their way to the Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has as yet no name—a kind of cross between a great coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves. Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick with a large tassel at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round, and the whole four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a sort of paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had got a watch about the size and shape of a Ribstone pippin, jammed into his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at The Chronicle office, the ditto ditto at Exeter Change, St. Martin’s Church clock, and the Horse Guards; and when they at last arrived in St. James’s-park, the member of the party who had the best made boots on, hired a second chair expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of sylvan luxury with an air which, in our mind, levelled all distinctions between Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells. It may be urged that if London apprentices continue to pursue these freaks, they will no longer be the distinct class which we shall attempt to show they now are, by tracing them through the different scenes we propose sketch. We feel the whole force of the objection; and we see no reason why the same gentleman of enlarged and comprehensive views who proposes to Parliament a measure for preserving the amusements of the upper classes of society, and abolishing those of the lower, may not with equal wisdom preserve the former more completely, and mark the distinction between the two more effectively, by bringing in a Bill "to limit to certain members of the hereditary peerages of this country and their families, the privilege of making fools of themselves as often as egregiously as to them shall seem meet." Precedent is a great thing in these cases, and Heaven knows he will have precedent enough to plead. There are so many classes of people in London, each one so different from the other, and each so peculiar in itself, that we find it time to bring our paper to a close before we have well brought our subject to a beginning. We are, therefore, induced to hope that we may calculate upon the permission of our readers to think about people again at some future time. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' The Evening Chronicle (23 April 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People' Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (23 April 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350423/016/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-04-23 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. X, Thoughts About People.' (23 April 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-04-23_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoX_Thoughts_About_People</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. 'Tis strange with how little notice, good, bad, or indifferent, a man may live and die in London. He awakens no sympathy in the breast of any single person; his existence is a matter of interest to no one save himself, and he cannot be said to be forgotten when he dies, for no one remembered him when he was alive. There really are a very numerous class of people in this great metropolis who seem not to possess a single friend, and whom nobody appears to care for. Urged by imperative necessity in the first instance, they have resorted to London in search of employment and the means of subsistence. It is hard, we know, to break the ties which bind us to our homes and friends; and harder still to efface the thousand recollections of happy days and old times, which have been slumbering in our bosoms for years, and only rush upon the mind to bring before it with startling reality associations connected with the friends we have left, the scenes we have beheld, too probably for the last time, and the hopes we once cherished, but may entertain no more. These men, however, happily for themselves, have long since forgotten such thoughts, old country friends have died or emigrated, former correspondents have become lost like themselves in the crowd and turmoil of some busy city, and they have gradually settled down into mere passive creatures of habit and endurance. We were seated in the enclosure of St. James’s Park the other day, when our attention was attracted by a man whom we immediately set down in our own mind as one of this class. He was a tall thin pale person in a black coat, scanty grey trowsers, little pinched-up gaiters, and brown beaver gloves. He had an umbrella in his hand—not for use, for the day was fine; but evidently because he always carried one to the office in the morning; and he walked up and down before the little patch of grass on which the chairs are placed for hire, not as if he were doing it for pleasure or recreation, but as if it were a matter of compulsion—just as he walks to the office every morning from the back settlements of Islington. It was Monday—Easter Monday; he had escaped for four-and-twenty hours from the thraldom of the desk, and was walking here for exercise and amusement—perhaps for the first time in his life. We were inclined to think he had never had a holiday before, and that even now he didn't exactly know what to do with himself. Children were playing on the grass; groups of people were loitering about, chatting and laughing; but the man walked steadily up and down, unheeding and unheeded; his spare, pale face looking as if it were incapable of bearing the expression of curiosity or interest;—altogether there was something in his manner and appearance which told us, we fancied, his whole life, or rather his whole day, for a man of this sort has no variety. We almost saw the dingy little back office into which he walks every morning, hanging his hat on the same peg, and placing his legs beneath the same desk: first, taking off that black coat which lasts the year through, and putting on the one which did duty last year, and which he keeps in his desk to save the other. There he sits till five o’clock, only raising his head when some one enters the counting house, or when in the midst of some difficult calculation, he looks up to the ceiling as if there were inspiration in the dusty skylight with a green knot in the centre of every pane of glass; working the day through as regularly as the dial over the mantel-piece, whose loud ticking is almost as monotonous as his own existence. About five, or half-past, he slowly dismounts from his accustomed stool, and again changing his coat proceeds to his usual dining-place, somewhere near Bucklersbury. The waiter recites the bill of fare in a rather confidential manner—for he's a regular customer— and after inquiring, "What’s in the best cut?" and "what was up last," he orders a small plate of roast beef with greens, and half a pint of porter. He has a small plate to-day because greens are a penny more than potatoes, and he had "two heads" yesterday, with the additional enormity of "a cheese" the day before. This important point being settled, he hangs up his hat—he took it off the moment he sat down—and bespeaks the paper after the next gentleman. If he can get it while he's at dinner he appears to eat it with much greater zest; balancing it against the water-bottle, and eating a bit of beef, and reading a line or two, alternately. Exactly at five minutes before the hour is up he produces a shilling, pays the reckoning, carefully deposits the change in his waistcoat pocket (first deducting a penny for the waiter) and returns to the office, from which, if it's not Foreign Post night, he again sallies forth in about half an hour. He then walks home at his usual pace to his little back room at Islington, where he has his tea; perhaps solacing himself during the meal with the conversation of his landlady’s little boy, whom he occasionally rewards with a penny for solving problems in simple addition. Sometimes there's a letter or two to take up to his employer’s in Bernard-street, Russell-square, and then the wealthy man of business hearing his voice, calls out from the dining-parlour, "Come in, Mr. Smith,"—and Mr. Smith, putting his hat at the feet of one of the hall chairs, walks timidly in, and being condescendingly desired to sit down, carefully tucks his legs under his chair, and sits at a considerable distance from the table while he drinks the glass of sherry which is poured out for him by the eldest boy, and after drinking which, he backs and slides out of the room in a state of nervous agitation, from which he does not perfectly recover until he finds himself once more in the Islington-road. Poor harmless creatures these men are; contented, but not happy; broken-spirited and humbled, they may feel no pain, but they never know pleasure. Compare these men with another class of beings who, like them have neither friend nor companion, but whose position in society is the result of their own choice. These are generally old fellows with white heads and red faces, addicted to port wine and Hessian boots, who, from some cause, real or imaginary—generally the former, the excellent reason being that they are rich and their relations poor—grow suspicious of everybody, and do the misanthropical in chambers, taking great delight in thinking themselves unhappy, and making everybody they come near miserable. You may see such men as these any where; you will know them at coffee-houses by their discontented exclamations and the luxury of their dinners; at theatres by their always sitting in the same place, and looking with a jaundiced eye on all the young people near them; at church by the pomposity with which they enter, and the loud tone in which they repeat the responses; at parties, by their getting cross at whist, and hating music. An old fellow of this kind will have his chambers splendidly furnished, collecting books, and plate, and pictures about him in profusion; not so much for his own gratification as to annoy those who have the desire, but not the means, to compete with him. He belongs to two or three Clubs, and is envied, and flattered, and hated by the members of them all. Sometimes he will be appealed to by a poor relation—a married nephew perhaps—for some little assistance and relief, and then he will declaim with honest indignation on the improvidence of young married people, the worthlessness of a wife, the insolence of having a family, the atrocity of getting into debt with a hundred and twenty-five pounds a year, and other unpardonable crimes; winding up his exhortation with a complacent review of his own conduct, and a delicate allusion to parochial relief. He dies, some day after dinner of apoplexy, having bequeathed his property to a Bible Society; and the Institution erects a tablet to his memory expressive of their admiration of his Christian conduct in this world, and their comfortable conviction of his happiness in the next. Next to our very particular friends, hackney-coachmen, cabmen, and cads, whom we admire in proportion to the extent of their cool impudence and perfect self-possession, there is no class of people who amuse us more than London apprentices. They are no longer an organized body, bound down by solemn compact to terrify his Majesty’s subjects whenever it pleased them to take offence in their heads, and staves in their hands. They are only bound now by indentures; and, as to their valour, it is easily restrained by the wholesome dread of the New Police, and a perspective view of a damp station-house, terminating in a police-office, and a reprimand. They are still, however, a peculiar class, and not the less pleasant for being inoffensive. Can any one fail to have noticed them in the streets on Sunday? And were there ever such beautiful attempts at the grand and magnificent as they display in their own proper persons! We walked down the Strand a Sunday or two ago, behind a little group; and they furnished food for our amusement the whole way. They had come out of some part of the city; it was between three and four o’clock in the afternoon, and they were on their way to the Park. There were four of them, all arm-in-arm, white kid gloves like so many bridegrooms, light oh-no-we-never-mention-'ems, of unprecedented patterns, and coats for which the English language has as yet no name—a kind of cross between a great coat and a surtout, with the collar of the one, the skirts of the other, and pockets peculiar to themselves. Each of the gentlemen carried a thick stick with a large tassel at the top, which he occasionally twirled gracefully round, and the whole four, by way of looking easy and unconcerned, were walking with a sort of paralytic swagger irresistibly ludicrous. One of the party had got a watch about the size and shape of a Ribstone pippin, jammed into his waistcoat-pocket, which he carefully compared with the clocks at St. Clement’s and the New Church, the illuminated clock at The Chronicle office, the ditto ditto at Exeter Change, St. Martin’s Church clock, and the Horse Guards; and when they at last arrived in St. James’s-park, the member of the party who had the best made boots on, hired a second chair expressly for his feet, and flung himself on this two-pennyworth of sylvan luxury with an air which, in our mind, levelled all distinctions between Brookes’s and Snooks’s, Crockford’s and Bagnigge Wells. It may be urged that if London apprentices continue to pursue these freaks, they will no longer be the distinct class which we shall attempt to show they now are, by tracing them through the different scenes we propose sketch. We feel the whole force of the objection; and we see no reason why the same gentleman of enlarged and comprehensive views who proposes to Parliament a measure for preserving the amusements of the upper classes of society, and abolishing those of the lower, may not with equal wisdom preserve the former more completely, and mark the distinction between the two more effectively, by bringing in a Bill "to limit to certain members of the hereditary peerages of this country and their families, the privilege of making fools of themselves as often as egregiously as to them shall seem meet." Precedent is a great thing in these cases, and Heaven knows he will have precedent enough to plead.  There are so many classes of people in London, each one so different from the other, and each so peculiar in itself, that we find it time to bring our paper to a close before we have well brought our subject to a beginning. We are, therefore, induced to hope that we may calculate upon the permission of our readers to think about people again at some future time.  https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XI_Astley_s/1835-05-09_Sketches_of_London_No.XI_Astleys.pdf 2c551524f8f21d35ef44a0aee1e45d2b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350509 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals in a book, or shop window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pen’s point following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination, and wince involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady, who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for nine-pence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head occasionally by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which recalls so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley’s. It was not a "Royal Amphitheatre" in those days; nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the saw-dust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same—the pieces were the same—the clown’s jokes were the same— the riding-masters were equally grand—the comic performers equally witty—the tragedians equally hoarse—and the "highly-trained chargers" equally spirited. Astley’s has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone; and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted and amused with the audience, than with the pageantry we once so highly appreciated. We like to watch a regular Astley’s party in the Easter or midsummer holidays—Pa and Ma, and nine or ten children, varying from five foot six to two foot eleven; from fourteen years of age to four. We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes in the centre of the house the other night, when the next was occupied by just such a party as we should have attempted to describe, had we depicted our beau ideal of a group of Astley’s visitors. First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who in pursuance of Pa’s directions, issued in a very audible voice from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little girls were ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess. Then came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets and trousers, with a lay-down shirt-collar; then a child in a braided frock and high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened to their utmost width, was lifted over the seats—a process which occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs —then came Ma and Pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of about fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he didn't belong to the family. The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the little girls and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair; then it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated behind a pillar and couldn't see, so the governess was stuck behind the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place; then Pa drilled the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket handkerchiefs; and Ma having just nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls’ frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little troop—an inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at Pa, who was standing up at the other end of the seat; and Pa returned the glance, and blew his nose very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch Ma’s eye with a look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley’s was more than twice as large as Drury-Lane, agreed to refer it to "George" for his decision; at which "George," who was no other than the young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name repeated in so loud a voice at a public place; on which all the children laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing his opinion, that "George began to think himself quite a man now," whereupon both Pa and Ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that "William always was encouraged in his impertinence;" and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the whole evening. The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds; Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look as if he wasn’t. As for Ma, she was perfectly overcome by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess peeped out from behind the pillar again; and whenever she could catch Ma’s eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow who was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child’s flirtation the whole evening with a small coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model of her Mama on a reduced scale; and who, in common with the other little girls (who generally speaking have even more coquettishness about them than much older ones), looked very properly shocked when the knight’s squire kissed the princess’s confidential chambermaid. When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more delighted than ever, and the wish to see what was going forward completely conquering Pa’s dignity, he stood up in the box, and applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of horsemanship, the governess leant across to Ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children on that which had preceded; and Ma, in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop; and the governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance; and the whole party seemed quite happy except the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being to grand to take and interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by any body else, occupied himself, from time to time in rubbing the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory. We defy any one who has been to Astley’s two or three times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourselves, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas is let down —the curtain drawn up, for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring—the orange-peel cleared away, and the saw-dust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle—we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown’s shrill shout of "Here we are!" just for old acquaintance sake. We can't even quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. We don't mean any of your second-rate riding-masters in nankeen dressing-gowns with brown frogs, but the regular gentleman attendant on the principal riders, who always wears a military uniform with a table-cloth inside the breast of the coat; in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting. He is—but why should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man, and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanour stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their jealousy considered it, and the splendid head of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little badinage, and the striking recollection of his own dignity, with which he exclaims, "Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir," can never be forgotten. Again, the graceful air with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and after assisting her on to the saddle, follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present. When Miss Woolford and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the following (commenced by the clown): "I say, sir!"—"Well, sir." (it’s always conducted in the politest manner.) "Did you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir?"—"No, sir."— "Oh, yes, sir—I can go through my exercise, sir."— "Indeed, sir!"—"Shall I do it now, sir?"—"If you please, sir, come, Sir—make haste" (a cut with the long whip, and "Ha’ done now—I don’t like it, from the clown). Here the clown throws himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic convulsions, doubling himself up and untying himself again, and making himself look very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human agony, to the vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is interrupted by a second cut from the long whip, and a request to see "what Miss Woolford’s stopping for?" On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the gallery, he exclaims, "Now Miss Woolford, what can I come for to go for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for you, ma’am?" On the lady’s announcing with a sweet smile, that she wants the two flags, they are with sundry grimaces procured and handed up; the clown facetiously observing after the performance of the latter ceremony—"He, he, oh! I say sir, Miss Woolford knows me; she smiled at me." Another cut from the whip—a burst from the orchestra—a start from the horse, and round goes Miss Woolford again on her graceful performance, to the delight of every member of the audience, young or old. The next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the only additional fun being that of the clown making ludicrous grimaces at the riding-master every time his back is turned; and finally quitting the circle by jumping over his head, having previously directed his attention another way. Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about the stage doors of our minor theatres in the day time? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour-swagger, and a kind of conscious air peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green trowsers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the white hat of the summer before last as knowingly over his right eye as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his seedy coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant and not come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout, clean collar, and white trowsers, for half an hour, and then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes; who has to boast night after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound a week and his boots to find; to talk of his father’s mansion in the country, with the dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home, is in the family way, and out of an engagement! Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so forth. By-the-bye, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. Fathers are invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain rose, usually commencing with "It is now nineteen years, my dear child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain’s voice faulters) confided you to my charge. You were then an infant," &c., &c. Or else they have to discover, all of a sudden, that somebody, whom they have been in constant communication with during three long acts, without the slightest suspicion, is their own child, in which case they exclaim, "Ah! what do I see! This bracelet! That smile! These documents! Those eyes! Can I believe my senses? It must be!—Yes—it is—it is—my child!" "My father!" exclaims the child, and they fall into each other’s arms, and look over each other’s shoulders; and the audience give three rounds of applause. To return from this digression; we were about to say that these are the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinizing outside the stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley’s they are always more numerous than at any other place; there is generally a groom or two sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and carrying, perhaps, under one arm a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years ago we used to stand looking, open-mouthed, at these men with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing. We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance, in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we beheld by day. We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with the "dirty swell," the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress, but the other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them—who ever knew a rider at Astley’s, or saw him, but on horseback? Can our friend in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We cannot—we will not—believe it. It is to us matter of positive wonder and astonishment that the infectious disease commonly known by the name of "stage-struck," has never been eradicated, unless people really believe that the privilege of wearing velvet and feathers for an hour or two at night, is sufficient compensation for a life of wretchedness and misery. It is stranger still, that that denizens of attorneys' offices, merchants' counting-houses, haberdashers' shops, and coal sheds, should squander their own resources to enrich some wily vagabond by paying—actually paying, and dearly too—to make unmitigated and unqualified asses of themselves at a Private Theatre. Private theatres, so far as we know, are peculiar to London; they flourish just now, for we have half a dozen at our fingers' ends. We will take an early opportunity of introducing our readers to the Managers of one or two, and of sketching the interior of a Private Theatre, both before the curtain and behind it. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's.' The Evening Chronicle (9 May 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350509/014/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-05-09 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XI, Astley's' (09 May 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-09_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXI_Astleys</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (9 May 1835). Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. We never see any very large, staring, black Roman capitals in a book, or shop window, or placarded on a wall, without their immediately recalling to our mind an indistinct and confused recollection of the time when we were first initiated in the mysteries of the alphabet. We almost fancy we see the pen’s point following the letter, to impress its form more strongly on our bewildered imagination, and wince involuntarily, as we remember the hard knuckles with which the reverend old lady, who instilled into our mind the first principles of education for nine-pence per week, or ten and sixpence per quarter, was wont to poke our juvenile head occasionally by way of adjusting the confusion of ideas in which we were generally involved. The same kind of feeling pursues us in many other instances, but there is no place which recalls so strongly our recollections of childhood as Astley’s. It was not a "Royal Amphitheatre" in those days; nor had Ducrow arisen to shed the light of classic taste and portable gas over the saw-dust of the circus; but the whole character of the place was the same—the pieces were the same—the clown’s jokes were the same— the riding-masters were equally grand—the comic performers equally witty—the tragedians equally hoarse—and the "highly-trained chargers" equally spirited. Astley’s has altered for the better—we have changed for the worse. Our histrionic taste is gone; and with shame we confess, that we are far more delighted and amused with the audience, than with the pageantry we once so highly appreciated. We like to watch a regular Astley’s party in the Easter or midsummer holidays—Pa and Ma, and nine or ten children, varying from five foot six to two foot eleven; from fourteen years of age to four. We had just taken our seat in one of the boxes in the centre of the house the other night, when the next was occupied by just such a party as we should have attempted to describe, had we depicted our beau ideal of a group of Astley’s visitors. First of all, there came three little boys and a little girl, who in pursuance of Pa’s directions, issued in a very audible voice from the box-door, occupied the front row; then two more little girls were ushered in by a young lady, evidently the governess. Then came three more little boys, dressed like the first, in blue jackets and trousers, with a lay-down shirt-collar; then a child in a braided frock and high state of astonishment, with very large round eyes, opened to their utmost width, was lifted over the seats—a process which occasioned a considerable display of little pink legs —then came Ma and Pa, and then the eldest son, a boy of about fourteen years old, who was evidently trying to look as if he didn't belong to the family. The first five minutes were occupied in taking the shawls off the little girls and adjusting the bows which ornamented their hair; then it was providentially discovered that one of the little boys was seated behind a pillar and couldn't see, so the governess was stuck behind the pillar, and the boy lifted into her place; then Pa drilled the boys, and directed the stowing away of their pocket handkerchiefs; and Ma having just nodded and winked to the governess to pull the girls’ frocks a little more off their shoulders, stood up to review the little troop—an inspection which appeared to terminate much to her own satisfaction, for she looked with a complacent air at Pa, who was standing up at the other end of the seat; and Pa returned the glance, and blew his nose very emphatically; and the poor governess peeped out from behind the pillar, and timidly tried to catch Ma’s eye with a look expressive of her high admiration of the whole family. Then two of the little boys who had been discussing the point whether Astley’s was more than twice as large as Drury-Lane, agreed to refer it to "George" for his decision; at which "George," who was no other than the young gentleman before noticed, waxed indignant, and remonstrated in no very gentle terms on the gross impropriety of having his name repeated in so loud a voice at a public place; on which all the children laughed very heartily, and one of the little boys wound up by expressing his opinion, that "George began to think himself quite a man now," whereupon both Pa and Ma laughed too; and George (who carried a dress cane and was cultivating whiskers) muttered that "William always was encouraged in his impertinence;" and assumed a look of profound contempt, which lasted the whole evening. The play began, and the interest of the little boys knew no bounds; Pa was clearly interested too, although he very unsuccessfully endeavoured to look as if he wasn’t. As for Ma, she was perfectly overcome by the drollery of the principal comedian, and laughed till every one of the immense bows on her ample cap trembled, at which the governess peeped out from behind the pillar again; and whenever she could catch Ma’s eye, put her handkerchief to her mouth, and appeared, as in duty bound, to be in convulsions of laughter also. Then when the man in the splendid armour vowed to rescue the lady or perish in the attempt, the little boys applauded vehemently, especially one little fellow who was apparently on a visit to the family, and had been carrying on a child’s flirtation the whole evening with a small coquette of twelve years old, who looked like a model of her Mama on a reduced scale; and who, in common with the other little girls (who generally speaking have even more coquettishness about them than much older ones), looked very properly shocked when the knight’s squire kissed the princess’s confidential chambermaid. When the scenes in the circle commenced, the children were more delighted than ever, and the wish to see what was going forward completely conquering Pa’s dignity, he stood up in the box, and applauded as loudly as any of them. Between each feat of horsemanship, the governess leant across to Ma, and retailed the clever remarks of the children on that which had preceded; and Ma, in the openness of her heart, offered the governess an acidulated drop; and the governess, gratified to be taken notice of, retired behind her pillar again with a brighter countenance; and the whole party seemed quite happy except the exquisite in the back of the box, who, being to grand to take and interest in the children, and too insignificant to be taken notice of by any body else, occupied himself, from time to time in rubbing the place where the whiskers ought to be, and was completely alone in his glory. We defy any one who has been to Astley’s two or three times, and is consequently capable of appreciating the perseverance with which precisely the same jokes are repeated night after night, and season after season, not to be amused with one part of the performances at least—we mean the scenes in the circle. For ourselves, we know that when the hoop, composed of jets of gas is let down —the curtain drawn up, for the convenience of the half-price on their ejectment from the ring—the orange-peel cleared away, and the saw-dust shaken, with mathematical precision, into a complete circle—we feel as much enlivened as the youngest child present; and actually join in the laugh which follows the clown’s shrill shout of "Here we are!" just for old acquaintance sake. We can't even quite divest ourself of our old feeling of reverence for the riding-master, who follows the clown with a long whip in his hand, and bows to the audience with graceful dignity. We don't mean any of your second-rate riding-masters in nankeen dressing-gowns with brown frogs, but the regular gentleman attendant on the principal riders, who always wears a military uniform with a table-cloth inside the breast of the coat; in which costume he forcibly reminds one of a fowl trussed for roasting. He is—but why should we attempt to describe that of which no description can convey an adequate idea? Everybody knows the man, and everybody remembers his polished boots, his graceful demeanour stiff, as some misjudging persons have in their jealousy considered it, and the splendid head of black hair, parted high on the forehead, to impart to the countenance an appearance of deep thought and poetic melancholy. His soft and pleasing voice, too, is in perfect unison with his noble bearing, as he humours the clown by indulging in a little badinage, and the striking recollection of his own dignity, with which he exclaims, "Now, sir, if you please, inquire for Miss Woolford, sir," can never be forgotten. Again, the graceful air with which he introduces Miss Woolford into the arena, and after assisting her on to the saddle, follows her fairy courser round the circle, can never fail to create a deep impression in the bosom of every female servant present. When Miss Woolford and the horse, and the orchestra, all stop together to take breath, he urbanely takes part in some such dialogue as the following (commenced by the clown): "I say, sir!"—"Well, sir." (it’s always conducted in the politest manner.) "Did you ever happen to hear I was in the army, sir?"—"No, sir."— "Oh, yes, sir—I can go through my exercise, sir."— "Indeed, sir!"—"Shall I do it now, sir?"—"If you please, sir, come, Sir—make haste" (a cut with the long whip, and "Ha’ done now—I don’t like it, from the clown). Here the clown throws himself on the ground, and goes through a variety of gymnastic convulsions, doubling himself up and untying himself again, and making himself look very like a man in the most hopeless extreme of human agony, to the vociferous delight of the gallery, until he is interrupted by a second cut from the long whip, and a request to see "what Miss Woolford’s stopping for?" On which, to the inexpressible mirth of the gallery, he exclaims, "Now Miss Woolford, what can I come for to go for to fetch, for to bring, for to carry, for to do, for you, ma’am?" On the lady’s announcing with a sweet smile, that she wants the two flags, they are with sundry grimaces procured and handed up; the clown facetiously observing after the performance of the latter ceremony—"He, he, oh! I say sir, Miss Woolford knows me; she smiled at me." Another cut from the whip—a burst from the orchestra—a start from the horse, and round goes Miss Woolford again on her graceful performance, to the delight of every member of the audience, young or old. The next pause affords an opportunity for similar witticisms, the only additional fun being that of the clown making ludicrous grimaces at the riding-master every time his back is turned; and finally quitting the circle by jumping over his head, having previously directed his attention another way. Did any of our readers ever notice the class of people, who hang about the stage doors of our minor theatres in the day time? You will rarely pass one of these entrances without seeing a group of three or four men conversing on the pavement, with an indescribable public-house-parlour-swagger, and a kind of conscious air peculiar to people of this description. They always seem to think they are exhibiting; the lamps are ever before them. That young fellow in the faded brown coat, and very full light green trowsers, pulls down the wristbands of his check shirt as ostentatiously as if it were of the finest linen, and cocks the white hat of the summer before last as knowingly over his right eye as if it were a purchase of yesterday. Look at the dirty white berlin gloves, and the cheap silk handkerchief stuck in the bosom of his seedy coat. Is it possible to see him for an instant and not come to the conclusion that he is the walking gentleman who wears a blue surtout, clean collar, and white trowsers, for half an hour, and then shrinks into his worn-out scanty clothes; who has to boast night after night of his splendid fortune, with the painful consciousness of a pound a week and his boots to find; to talk of his father’s mansion in the country, with the dreary recollection of his own two-pair back, in the New Cut; and to be envied and flattered as the favoured lover of a rich heiress, remembering all the while that the ex-dancer at home, is in the family way, and out of an engagement! Next to him, perhaps, you will see a thin pale man, with a very long face, in a suit of shining black, thoughtfully knocking that part of his boot which once had a heel, with an ash stick. He is the man who does the heavy business, such as prosy fathers, virtuous servants, curates, landlords, and so forth. By-the-bye, talking of fathers, we should very much like to see some piece in which all the dramatis personae were orphans. Fathers are invariably great nuisances on the stage, and always have to give the hero or heroine a long explanation of what was done before the curtain rose, usually commencing with "It is now nineteen years, my dear child, since your blessed mother (here the old villain’s voice faulters) confided you to my charge. You were then an infant," &c., &c. Or else they have to discover, all of a sudden, that somebody, whom they have been in constant communication with during three long acts, without the slightest suspicion, is their own child, in which case they exclaim, "Ah! what do I see! This bracelet! That smile! These documents! Those eyes! Can I believe my senses? It must be!—Yes—it is—it is—my child!" "My father!" exclaims the child, and they fall into each other’s arms, and look over each other’s shoulders; and the audience give three rounds of applause. To return from this digression; we were about to say that these are the sort of people whom you see talking, and attitudinizing outside the stage-doors of our minor theatres. At Astley’s they are always more numerous than at any other place; there is generally a groom or two sitting on the window-sill, and two or three dirty shabby-genteel men in checked neckerchiefs, and sallow linen, lounging about, and carrying, perhaps, under one arm a pair of stage shoes badly wrapped up in a piece of old newspaper. Some years ago we used to stand looking, open-mouthed, at these men with a feeling of mysterious curiosity, the very recollection of which provokes a smile at the moment we are writing. We could not believe that the beings of light and elegance, in milk-white tunics, salmon-coloured legs, and blue scarfs, who flitted on sleek cream-coloured horses before our eyes at night, with all the aid of lights, music, and artificial flowers, could be the pale, dissipated-looking creatures we beheld by day. We can hardly believe it now. Of the lower class of actors we have seen something, and it requires no great exercise of imagination to identify the walking gentleman with the "dirty swell," the comic singer with the public-house chairman, or the leading tragedian with drunkenness and distress, but the other men are mysterious beings, never seen out of the ring, never beheld but in the costume of gods and sylphs. With the exception of Ducrow, who can scarcely be classed among them—who ever knew a rider at Astley’s, or saw him, but on horseback? Can our friend in the military uniform ever appear in threadbare attire, or descend to the comparatively un-wadded costume of every-day life? Impossible! We cannot—we will not—believe it. It is to us matter of positive wonder and astonishment that the infectious disease commonly known by the name of "stage-struck," has never been eradicated, unless people really believe that the privilege of wearing velvet and feathers for an hour or two at night, is sufficient compensation for a life of wretchedness and misery. It is stranger still, that that denizens of attorneys' offices, merchants' counting-houses, haberdashers' shops, and coal sheds, should squander their own resources to enrich some wily vagabond by paying—actually paying, and dearly too—to make unmitigated and unqualified asses of themselves at a Private Theatre. Private theatres, so far as we know, are peculiar to London; they flourish just now, for we have half a dozen at our fingers' ends. We will take an early opportunity of introducing our readers to the Managers of one or two, and of sketching the interior of a Private Theatre, both before the curtain and behind it.  https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XII_Our_Parish_[I]/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No.XII_Our_Parish_I.pdf a11a98aacb2c45b35d43699907675b6b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350519 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. In a former number of our series we attempted a sketch of two or three of the worthies who hold office in our parish; and we wound up by observing that we should seek materials for another paper in that little kingdom. The promise escape our attention until a few days ago; but we now hasten to redeem it with a due sense of contrition for our negligence in not having done so before. We commenced the article to which we have referred with the beadle of our parish, deeply feeling the importance and dignity of his station. We will begin the present paper with the clergyman.—Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angel's faces on Mr. Tomkins's monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners, parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Saxon arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers); and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mamas on our new curate; and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which to do him justice he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading desk rose in value: sittings in the centre circle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money; and some people even went so far as to assert that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens', were detected one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection; he got out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock one winter's night to half-baptize a washerwoman's child in a slop-basin; and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once—the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the woman's fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes an anti-Slavery meeting at the Goat in Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting the Curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver ink-stand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the Curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat in Boots: the ink-stand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present —the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that by this time the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough—four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle; and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive! It was too much. Anonymous presents of black currant jam, and lozenges; elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole; verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was at the height, indeed, in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in one chapel of ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme; his manner ungainly; his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him at first, because he was so odd-looking, so expressive, then because he preached so well; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short the curate wasn't a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one; the curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and our chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday! The best known and most respected among our parishioners is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was entered. Our parish is a sub-urban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her own, and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when she old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady's ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness: the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and bees' waxes, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o'clock—and the little nic nacs are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal box at Drury-lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needle-work—near the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in the evening, you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table before her., of which "Sarah," who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud. The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea drinking with her, to which she child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side, and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks and double knock to prevent the possibility of her Missis's catching cold by having to wait at the door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So and So to meet Mr. and Mrs. somebody else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing room in great state. She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard; but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he's always been one of her greatest trials, and that indeed he once almost broke her hear; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she'd prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners, and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and her's are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsy until the pew opener has ushered the old lady unto her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsy, and shut the door; and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was. Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea coast, passes the old lady's life. It has rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its termination with calmness, and without apprehension. She has every thing to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady's next door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half pay; and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady's domestic economy, not a little. In the first place he will smoke cigars in the front court; and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady's knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, "A regular Robinson Crusoe," and nothing delights him better than to experimentalize on the old lady's property. One morning he got up early and planted three or four roots of full-blown marygolds in every bed of her front garden to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the wors, which he put together again by some undiscovered process in so wonderful a manner that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up stairs—probably with the view of inquiring after his friends, for on further inspection it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house. The old lady went to the sea-side in despair, and during her absence he completely effected the name from her brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the constituted authorities of the parish; denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gathered call for his money till he won't call any longer, and then he sends it; finds fault with the sermon every Sunday; says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself; offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together, male and female; and in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner. The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a cheritable, open-handed old fellow at bottom after all; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main; and she laughs as much at each feat of his handy-work when its all over as anybody else.We have attained our usual limits, and must conclude our paper. We are not sufficiently acquainted with the details of the recent alteration in the Poor-laws, to know whether we have a legal settlement anywhere or not; but we hope our readers will not object, when subjects are scarce, and we distressed, to our deriving assistance from the parochial funds. We are perfectly willing to work for their amusement; but we openly avow our determination, on some future occasions, to throw ourselves again upon—"Our Parish." TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish' (I). The Evening Chronicle (19 May 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish' (I) Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (19 May 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350519/021/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-05-19 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XII, Our Parish (I)' (19 May 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Acessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-05-19_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXII_Our_ParishI</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. In a former number of our series we attempted a sketch of two or three of the worthies who hold office in our parish; and we wound up by observing that we should seek materials for another paper in that little kingdom. The promise escape our attention until a few days ago; but we now hasten to redeem it with a due sense of contrition for our negligence in not having done so before.  We commenced the article to which we have referred with the beadle of our parish, deeply feeling the importance and dignity of his station. We will begin the present paper with the clergyman.—Our curate is a young gentleman of such prepossessing appearance and fascinating manners, that within one month after his first appearance in the parish half the young-lady inhabitants were melancholy with religion, and the other half desponding with love. Never were so many young ladies seen in our parish-church on Sunday before; and never had the little round angel's faces on Mr. Tomkins's monument in the side aisle, beheld such devotion on earth as they all exhibited. He was about five-and-twenty when he first came to astonish the parishioners, parted his hair on the centre of his forehead in the form of a Saxon arch, wore a brilliant of the first water on the fourth finger of his left hand (which he always applied to his left cheek when he read prayers); and had a deep sepulchral voice of unusual solemnity. Innumerable were the calls made by prudent mamas on our new curate; and innumerable the invitations with which he was assailed, and which to do him justice he readily accepted. If his manner in the pulpit had created an impression in his favour, the sensation was increased tenfold by his appearance in private circles. Pews in the immediate vicinity of the pulpit or reading desk rose in value: sittings in the centre circle were at a premium: an inch of room in the front row of the gallery could not be procured for love or money; and some people even went so far as to assert that the three Miss Browns, who had an obscure family pew just behind the churchwardens', were detected one Sunday, in the free seats by the communion-table, actually lying in wait for the curate as he passed to the vestry! He began to preach extempore sermons, and even grave papas caught the infection; he got out of bed at half-past twelve o'clock one winter's night to half-baptize a washerwoman's child in a slop-basin; and the gratitude of the parishioners knew no bounds—the very churchwardens grew generous, and insisted on the parish defraying the expense of the watch-box on wheels, which the new curate had ordered for himself to perform the funeral service in, in wet weather. He sent three pints of gruel and a quarter of a pound of tea to a poor woman who had been brought to bed of four small children, all at once—the parish were charmed. He got up a subscription for her—the woman's fortune was made. He spoke for one hour and twenty-five minutes an anti-Slavery meeting at the Goat in Boots—the enthusiasm was at its height. A proposal was set on foot for presenting the Curate with a piece of plate, as a mark of esteem for his valuable services rendered to the parish. The list of subscriptions was filled up in no time; the contest was, not who should escape the contribution, but who should be the foremost to subscribe. A splendid silver ink-stand was made, and engraved with an appropriate inscription; the Curate was invited to a public breakfast, at the before-mentioned Goat in Boots: the ink-stand was presented in a neat speech by Mr. Gubbins, the ex-churchwarden, and acknowledged by the curate in terms which drew tears into the eyes of all present —the very waiters were melted. One would have supposed that by this time the theme of universal admiration was lifted to the very pinnacle of popularity. No such thing. The curate began to cough—four fits of coughing one morning between the Litany and the Epistle; and five in the afternoon service. Here was a discovery—the curate was consumptive. How interestingly melancholy! If the young ladies were energetic before, their sympathy and solicitude now knew no bounds. Such a man as the curate—such a dear—such a perfect love—to be consumptive! It was too much. Anonymous presents of black currant jam, and lozenges; elastic waistcoats, bosom friends, and warm stockings, poured in upon the curate until he was as completely fitted out with winter clothing as if he were on the verge of an expedition to the North Pole; verbal bulletins of the state of his health were circulated throughout the parish half-a-dozen times a day; and the curate was at the height, indeed, in the very zenith of his popularity. About this period, a change came over the spirit of the parish. A very quiet, respectable dozing old gentleman, who had officiated in one chapel of ease for twelve years previously, died one fine morning, without having given any notice whatever of his intention. This circumstance gave rise to counter-sensation the first; and the arrival of his successor occasioned counter-sensation the second. He was a pale, thin, cadaverous man, with large black eyes, and long straggling black hair: his dress was slovenly in the extreme; his manner ungainly; his doctrines startling; in short, he was in every respect the antipodes of the curate. Crowds of our female parishioners flocked to hear him at first, because he was so odd-looking, so expressive, then because he preached so well; and at last, because they really thought that, after all, there was something about him which it was quite impossible to describe. As to the curate, he was all very well; but certainly, after all, there was no denying that—that—in short the curate wasn't a novelty, and the other clergyman was. The inconstancy of public opinion is proverbial: the congregation migrated one by one; the curate coughed till he was black in the face—it was in vain. He respired with difficulty—it was equally ineffectual in awakening sympathy. Seats are once again to be had in any part of our parish church, and our chapel-of-ease is going to be enlarged, as it is crowded to suffocation every Sunday! The best known and most respected among our parishioners is an old lady, who resided in our parish long before our name was entered. Our parish is a sub-urban one, and the old lady lives in a neat row of houses in the most airy and pleasant part of it. The house is her own, and it, and everything about it, except the old lady herself, who looks a little older than she did ten years ago, is in just the same state as when she old gentleman was living. The little front parlour, which is the old lady's ordinary sitting-room, is a perfect picture of quiet neatness: the carpet is covered with brown Holland, the glass and picture-frames are carefully enveloped in yellow muslin; the table-covers are never taken off, except when the leaves are turpentined and bees' waxes, an operation which is regularly commenced every other morning at half-past nine o'clock—and the little nic nacs are always arranged in precisely the same manner. The greater part of these are presents from little girls whose parents live in the same row; but some of them, such as the two old-fashioned watches (which never keep the same time, one being always a quarter of an hour too slow, and the other a quarter of an hour too fast), the little picture of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold as they appeared in the Royal box at Drury-lane Theatre, and others of the same class, have been in the old lady's possession for many years. Here the old lady sits with her spectacles on, busily engaged in needle-work—near the window in summer time; and if she sees you coming up the steps and you happen to be a favourite, she trots out to open the street door for you before you knock, and as you must be fatigued after that hot walk, insists on your swallowing two glasses of sherry before you exert yourself by talking. If you call in the evening, you will find her cheerful, but rather more serious than usual, with an open Bible on the table before her., of which "Sarah," who is just as neat and methodical as her mistress, regularly reads two or three chapters in the parlour aloud. The old lady sees scarcely any company, except the little girls before noticed, each of whom has always a regular fixed day for a periodical tea drinking with her, to which she child looks forward as the greatest treat of its existence. She seldom visits at a greater distance than the next door but one on either side, and when she drinks tea here, Sarah runs out first and knocks and double knock to prevent the possibility of her Missis's catching cold by having to wait at the door. She is very scrupulous in returning these little invitations, and when she asks Mr. and Mrs. So and So to meet Mr. and Mrs. somebody else, Sarah and she dust the urn, and the best china service, and the Pope Joan board; and the visitors are received in the drawing room in great state. She has but few relations, and they are scattered about in different parts of the country, and she seldom sees them. She has a son in India, whom she always describes to you as a fine, handsome fellow—so like the profile of his poor dear father over the sideboard; but the old lady adds, with a mournful shake of the head, that he's always been one of her greatest trials, and that indeed he once almost broke her hear; but it pleased God to enable her to get the better of it, and she'd prefer your never mentioning the subject to her again. She has a great number of pensioners, and on Saturday, after she comes back from market, there is a regular levee of old men and women in the passage waiting for their weekly gratuity. Her name always heads the list of any benevolent subscriptions, and her's are always the most liberal donations to the Winter Coal and Soup Distribution Society. She subscribed twenty pounds towards the erection of an organ in our parish church, and was so overcome the first Sunday the children sang to it, that she was obliged to be carried out by the pew opener. Her entrance into church on Sunday is always the signal for a little bustle in the side aisle, occasioned by a general rise among the poor people, who bow and curtsy until the pew opener has ushered the old lady unto her accustomed seat, dropped a respectful curtsy, and shut the door; and the same ceremony is repeated on her leaving church, when she walks home with the family next door but one, and talks about the sermon all the way, invariably opening the conversation by asking the youngest boy where the text was. Thus, with the annual variation of a trip to some quiet place on the sea coast, passes the old lady's life. It has rolled on in the same unvarying and benevolent course for many years now, and must at no distant period be brought to its final close. She looks forward to its termination with calmness, and without apprehension. She has every thing to hope and nothing to fear. A very different personage, but one who has rendered himself very conspicuous in our parish, is one of the old lady's next door neighbours. He is an old naval officer on half pay; and his bluff and unceremonious behaviour disturbs the old lady's domestic economy, not a little. In the first place he will smoke cigars in the front court; and when he wants something to drink with them—which is by no means an uncommon circumstance—he lifts up the old lady's knocker with his walking-stick, and demands to have a glass of table ale handed over the rails. In addition to this cool proceeding he is a bit of a Jack of all trades, or to use his own words, "A regular Robinson Crusoe," and nothing delights him better than to experimentalize on the old lady's property. One morning he got up early and planted three or four roots of full-blown marygolds in every bed of her front garden to the inconceivable astonishment of the old lady, who actually thought when she got up and looked out of the window, that it was some strange eruption which had come out in the night. Another time he took to pieces the eight-day clock on the front landing, under pretence of cleaning the wors, which he put together again by some undiscovered process in so wonderful a manner that the large hand has done nothing but trip up the little one ever since. Then he took to breeding silk-worms, which he would bring in two or three times a day, in little paper boxes, to show the old lady, generally dropping a worm or two at every visit. The consequence was, that one morning a very stout silk-worm was discovered in the act of walking up stairs—probably with the view of inquiring after his friends, for on further inspection it appeared that some of his companions had already found their way to every room in the house. The old lady went to the sea-side in despair, and during her absence he completely effected the name from her brass door-plate in his attempts to polish it with aqua fortis. But all this is nothing to his seditious conduct in public life. He attends every vestry meeting that is held; always opposes the constituted authorities of the parish; denounces the profligacy of the churchwardens, contests legal points against the vestry-clerk, will make the tax-gathered call for his money till he won't call any longer, and then he sends it; finds fault with the sermon every Sunday; says that the organist ought to be ashamed of himself; offers to back himself for any amount to sing the psalms better than all the children put together, male and female; and in short, conducts himself in the most turbulent and uproarious manner. The worst of it is, that having a high regard for the old lady, he wants to make her a convert to his views, and therefore walks into her little parlour with his newspaper in his hand, and talks violent politics by the hour. He is a cheritable, open-handed old fellow at bottom after all; so, although he puts the old lady a little out occasionally, they agree very well in the main; and she laughs as much at each feat of his handy-work when its all over as anybody else.  We have attained our usual limits, and must conclude our paper. We are not sufficiently acquainted with the details of the recent alteration in the Poor-laws, to know whether we have a legal settlement anywhere or not; but we hope our readers will not object, when subjects are scarce, and we distressed, to our deriving assistance from the parochial funds. We are perfectly willing to work for their amusement; but we openly avow our determination, on some future occasions, to throw ourselves again upon—"Our Parish." https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIII_The_River/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_The_River.pdf 778e46709b2adf5d7b67f0ab69c34939 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350606 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. "Are you fond of the water?" is a question very frequently asked in hot summer weather by amphibious-looking young men. "Very," is the general reply. "An’t you?"—"Hardly ever off it," is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives expressive of the speaker’s heartfelt admiration of that element. Now, with all respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter clubs in particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally disported himself on the Thames, must be connected with his aquatic recreations. Who ever heard of a successful water-party?—or to put the question in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw one? We have been on water excursions out of number; but we solemnly declare that we cannot call to mind one single occasion of the kind which was not marked by more miseries than any one would suppose could reasonably be crowded into the space of some eight or nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. Either the cork of the salad-dressing has come out, or the most anxiously expected member of the party has not come out, or the most disagreeable man in company would come out, or a child or two have fallen into the water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer has endangered everybody’s life all the way, or the gentlemen who volunteered to row have been "out of practice," and performed very alarming evolutions, putting their oars down into the water and not being able to get them up again; or taking terrific pulls without putting them in at all; in either case, pitching over on the backs of their heads with startling violence, and exhibiting the soles of their pumps to the "sitters" in the boat, in a very humiliating manner. We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond and Twickenham, and other distant places, often sought though seldom reached; but from the "Red-us" back to Blackfriar's-bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The Penitentiary is a noble building no doubt, and the sportive youths who "go in" at that particular part of the river on a summer’s evening, may be all very well in perspective, but where you are obliged to keep in shore coming home, and the young ladies will colour up, and look perseveringly the other way, while the married dittoes cough slightly, and look at the water, you certainly feel rather awkward— especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality for an hour or two previously. Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of boating. What can be more amusing than Searle’s yard on a fine Sunday morning. It’s a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trowsers and Guernsey shirts, are getting them ready by easy stages; now coming down the yard with a pair of sculls and a cushion—then having a chat with the "jack," who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about—then going back again, and returning with a rudder-line and a stretcher—then solacing themselves with another chat—and then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, "where them gentlemen’s got to as ordered the six." One of these, the head man, with the legs of his trowsers carefully tucked up at the bottom, to admit the water, we presume—for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land—is quite a character, and shares with the defunct oyster-swallower the celebrated name of "Dando." Watch him, as taking a few minutes respite from his toils, he negligently seats himself on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad bushy chest with a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at his magnificent though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native humour with which he "chaffs" the boys and prentices, or cunningly gammons the gemmen into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows enough in a day to float a "six oar" without producing the slightest effect upon his scull. But the party has now arrived, and Dando relieved from his state of uncertainty starts up into activity. They approach in full aquatic costume, with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps of all sizes and patterns, from the velvet skull cap of Tully's lounge, to the easy head-dress familiar to the students of the old spelling-books as having on the authority of the portrait, formed part of the costume of the Reverend Mr. Dilworth. This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Cockney water-party. There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody’s part relative to his knowledge of navigation; the sight of the water rapidly cools their courage, and the air of self-denial with which each of them insists on somebody else’s taking an oar is perfectly delightful. At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgetting, consequent upon the election of a stroke-oar—the inability of one gentleman to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and of a third to pull at all, the boat’s crew are seated. "Shove her off!" cries the cockswain, who looks about as easy and comfortable as if he were steering in the Bay of Biscay. The order is obeyed; the boat is immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards Westminster-bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never was seen before, except when the Royal George went down. "Back wa’a'ter, Sir," shouts Dando, "Back wa’a'ter, you, Sir, aft;" upon which, everybody thinking he must be the individual referred to, they all back water, and back comes the boat, stern first, to the spot whence it started. "Back water, you Sir, aft; pull round, you Sir, for’ad, can’t you?" shouts Dando, in a phrenzy of excitement. "Pull round, Tom, can’t you?" re-echoes one of the party. "Tom an’t for’ad," replies another. "Yes, he is," cries a third; and the unfortunate young man, at the imminent risk of breaking a blood-vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat fairly lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. "That’s right—now pull all on you!" shouts Dando again, adding, in an under tone, to somebody by him, "Blowed if hever I see sitch a set of muffs!" and away jogs the boat in a zig-zag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of the next party. A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and interesting scene. The water is studded with boats of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions—places in the coal-barges at the different wharfs are let to crowds of spectators—beer and tobacco flow freely about—men, women, and children wait for the start in breathless expectation—cutters of six and eight oars glide gently up and down, waiting to accompany their protégés during the race—bands of music add to the animation if not to the harmony of the scene —groups of watermen are assembled at the different stairs discussing the merits of the respective candidates—and the prize wherry which is rowed slowly about by a pair of sculls, is an object of general interest. Two o’clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come—half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long begins to flag when suddenly a gun is heard, and the noise of distant hurra’ing along each bank of the river—every head is bent forward—the noise draws nearer and nearer—the boats which have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river—a well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them, which are not yet visible —"Here they are," is the general cry—and through darts the first boat, the men in her stripped to the skin, and exerting every muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained—four other boats follow close astern, there are not two boats’ length between them—the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense. "Go on, Pink"—"Give it her, Red"—"Sulliwin for ever"—"Brayvo! George"—"Now, Tom, now—now—now—why don’t your partner stretch out?"—"Two pots to a pint on yellow," &c., &c. Every little public-house fires its gun, and hoists its flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint idea. One of the most amusing places we know is the steam wharf of the London-bridge, or St. Katherine’s Dock Company, on a Saturday morning, when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are usually crowded to excess; and as we have just taken a glance at the river above bridge, we hope our readers will not object to accompany us on board a Gravesend packet. Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the "fares" resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with them heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme. A Margate boat lies alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which starts first) lies alongside that again; and as a temporary communication is formed between the two, by means of a plank and hand-rail, the natural confusion of the scene is by no means diminished. "Gravesend?" inquires a stout father of a stout family, who follow him under the guidance of their mother and a servant, at the no small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the confusion. "Gravesend." "Pass on, if you please, Sir," replies the attendant—"other boat, Sir," whereupon the stout father, being rather mystified, and the stout mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party deposit themselves in the Margate boat, and after having congratulated himself on having secured very comfortable seats, the stout father sallies to the chimney to look for his luggage, which he has a faint recollection of having given some man something to take somewhere. No luggage, however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his in shape or form is to be discovered, on which the stout father calls very loudly for an officer, to whom he states the case in the presence of another father of another family—a little thin man, who entirely concurs with him (the stout father) in thinking that it’s high time something was done with these steam companies, and that as the Corporation Bill don't do it, something else must; for really people’s property is not to be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage isn’t restored without delay, he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for the public's not to be the victim of these great monopolies; on which the officer in his turn replies, that that company ever since it has been St. Kat’rine’s Dock Company, has protected life and property; that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company, indeed he shouldn’t have wondered, seeing that the morality of that company (they being the opposition) can’t be answered for, by no one; but as it is he’s convinced there must be some mistake, and he wouldn’t mind making a solemn oath afore a magistrate that the gentleman’ll find his luggage afore he gets to Margate. Here the stout father thinking he is making a capital point replies that as it happens he an't going to Margate at all, and that "Passenger to Gravesend" was on the luggage in letters of full two inches long, on which the officer rapidly explains the mistake, and the stout mother and the stout children and the servant are hurried with all possible despatch on board the Gravesend-boat, which they reach just in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not. Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend-boat starting, begins to ring most furiously, and people keep time to the bell by running in and out of our boat at a double quick pace: the bell stops, the boat starts: people who have been taking leave of their friends on board, are carried away against their will; and people who have been taking leave of their friends on shore, find that they have performed a very needless ceremony, in consequence of their not being carried away at all. The regular passengers, who have season tickets, go below to breakfast; people who have purchased morning papers, compose themselves to read them; and people who have not been down the river before, think that both the shipping and the water look a great deal better at a distance. When we get down about as far as Blackwall and begin to move at a quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in proportion. Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets with them, set seriously to work at the demolition of heavy sandwiches, and pass round a wine-glass, which is frequently replenished from a flat bottle like a stomach-warmer, with considerable glee, handing it first to the gentleman in the foraging-cap, who plays the harp—partly as an expression of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him to play "Dumbledumbdeary," for "Alick" to dance to; which being done, Alick, who is a damp earthy-looking child, in red worsted socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his family circle. Girls who have brought the first volume of some new novel in their reticule, become extremely plaintive, and expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O’Brien, who has been looking over them, on the blueness of the sky, and brightness of the water; on which Mr. Brown or Mr. O’Brien, as the case may be, remarks in a low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties of nature—that his whole thoughts and wishes have centered in one object alone—whereupon the young lady looks up, and failing in her attempt to appear unconscious, looks down again; and turns over the next leaf with great difficulty in order to afford opportunity for a lengthened pressure of the hand. Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy-and-water cold-without, begin to be in great requisition; and bashful men who have been looking down the hatchway at the engine, find to their great relief, a subject on which they can converse with one another—and a copious one too—Steam— "Wonderful thing steam, Sir." "Ah! (a deep-drawn sigh) it is indeed, Sir"—"great power, Sir."— "Immense—immense;"—"Great deal done by steam, Sir."—"Ah (another sigh at the immensity of the subject, and a knowing shake of the head)! you may say that, Sir." "Still in its infancy, they say Sir," and other novel remarks of this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip—not a long one on the water; nor we hope no paper either. If the trip should have appeared tedious, our good humour returns the moment we reach the pier; and if our description should have unfortunately done so too, we hope our readers will forget it the instant they leave—The River. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River.' The Evening Chronicle (6 June 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River' Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (6 June 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350606/021/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-06-06 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIII, The River' (6 June 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-06_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIII_The_River</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. "Are you fond of the water?" is a question very frequently asked in hot summer weather by amphibious-looking young men. "Very," is the general reply. "An’t you?"—"Hardly ever off it," is the response, accompanied by sundry adjectives expressive of the speaker’s heartfelt admiration of that element.  Now, with all respect for the opinion of society in general, and cutter clubs in particular, we humbly suggest that some of the most painful reminiscences in the mind of every individual who has occasionally disported himself on the Thames, must be connected with his aquatic recreations.  Who ever heard of a successful water-party?—or to put the question in a still more intelligible form, who ever saw one?  We have been on water excursions out of number; but we solemnly declare that we cannot call to mind one single occasion of the kind which was not marked by more miseries than any one would suppose could reasonably be crowded into the space of some eight or nine hours. Something has always gone wrong. Either the cork of the salad-dressing has come out, or the most anxiously expected member of the party has not come out, or the most disagreeable man in company would come out, or a child or two have fallen into the water, or the gentleman who undertook to steer has endangered everybody’s life all the way, or the gentlemen who volunteered to row have been "out of practice," and performed very alarming evolutions, putting their oars down into the water and not being able to get them up again; or taking terrific pulls without putting them in at all; in either case, pitching over on the backs of their heads with startling violence, and exhibiting the soles of their pumps to the "sitters" in the boat, in a very humiliating manner. We grant that the banks of the Thames are very beautiful at Richmond and Twickenham, and other distant places, often sought though seldom reached; but from the "Red-us" back to Blackfriar's-bridge, the scene is wonderfully changed. The Penitentiary is a noble building no doubt, and the sportive youths who "go in" at that particular part of the river on a summer’s evening, may be all very well in perspective, but where you are obliged to keep in shore coming home, and the young ladies will colour up, and look perseveringly the other way, while the married dittoes cough slightly, and look  at the water, you certainly feel rather awkward— especially if you happen to have been attempting the most distant approach to sentimentality for an hour or two previously. Although experience and suffering have produced in our minds the result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of boating. What can be more amusing than Searle’s yard on a fine Sunday morning. It’s a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trowsers and Guernsey shirts, are getting them ready by easy stages; now coming down the yard with a pair of sculls and a cushion—then having a chat with the "jack," who, like all his tribe, seems to be wholly incapable of doing anything but lounging about—then going back again, and returning with a rudder-line and a stretcher—then solacing themselves with another chat—and then wondering, with their hands in their capacious pockets, "where them gentlemen’s got to as ordered the six." One of these, the head man, with the legs of his trowsers carefully tucked up at the bottom, to admit the water, we presume—for it is an element in which he is infinitely more at home than on land—is quite a character, and shares with the defunct oyster-swallower the celebrated name of "Dando." Watch him, as taking a few minutes respite from his toils, he negligently seats himself on the edge of a boat, and fans his broad bushy chest with a cap scarcely half so furry. Look at his magnificent though reddish whiskers, and mark the somewhat native humour with which he "chaffs" the boys and prentices, or cunningly gammons the gemmen into the gift of a glass of gin, of which we verily believe he swallows enough in a day to float a "six oar" without producing the slightest effect upon his scull. But the party has now arrived, and Dando relieved from his state of uncertainty starts up into activity. They approach in full aquatic costume, with round blue jackets, striped shirts, and caps of all sizes and patterns, from the velvet skull cap of Tully's lounge, to the easy head-dress familiar to the students of the old spelling-books as having on the authority of the portrait, formed part of the costume of the Reverend Mr. Dilworth. This is the most amusing time to observe a regular Cockney water-party.  There has evidently been up to this period no inconsiderable degree of boasting on everybody’s part relative to his knowledge of navigation; the sight of the water rapidly cools their courage, and the air of self-denial with which each of them insists on somebody else’s taking an oar is perfectly delightful. At length, after a great deal of changing and fidgetting, consequent upon the election of a stroke-oar—the inability of one gentleman to pull on this side, of another to pull on that, and of a third to pull at all, the boat’s crew are seated. "Shove her off!" cries the cockswain, who looks about as easy and comfortable as if he were steering in the Bay of Biscay. The order is obeyed; the boat is immediately turned completely round, and proceeds towards Westminster-bridge, amidst such a splashing and struggling as never was seen before, except when the Royal George went down. "Back wa’a'ter, Sir," shouts Dando, "Back wa’a'ter, you, Sir, aft;" upon which, everybody thinking he must be the individual referred to, they all back water, and back comes the boat, stern first, to the spot whence it started. "Back water, you Sir, aft; pull round, you Sir, for’ad, can’t you?" shouts Dando, in a phrenzy of excitement. "Pull round, Tom, can’t you?" re-echoes one of the party. "Tom an’t for’ad," replies another. "Yes, he is," cries a third; and the unfortunate young man, at the imminent risk of breaking a blood-vessel, pulls and pulls, until the head of the boat fairly lies in the direction of Vauxhall-bridge. "That’s right—now pull all on you!" shouts Dando again, adding, in an under tone, to somebody by him, "Blowed if hever I see sitch a set of muffs!" and away jogs the boat in a zig-zag direction, every one of the six oars dipping into the water at a different time; and the yard is once more clear, until the arrival of the next party. A well-contested rowing-match on the Thames, is a very lively and interesting scene. The water is studded with boats of all sorts, kinds, and descriptions—places in the coal-barges at the different wharfs are let to crowds of spectators— beer and tobacco flow freely about—men, women, and children wait for the start in breathless expectation—cutters of six and eight oars glide gently up and down, waiting to accompany their protégés during the race—bands of music add to the animation if not to the harmony of the scene —groups of watermen are assembled at the different stairs discussing the merits of the respective candidates—and the prize wherry which is rowed slowly about by a pair of sculls, is an object of general interest. Two o’clock strikes, and everybody looks anxiously in the direction of the bridge through which the candidates for the prize will come—half-past two, and the general attention which has been preserved so long begins to flag when suddenly a gun is heard, and the noise of distant hurra’ing along each bank of the river—every head is bent forward—the noise draws nearer and nearer—the boats which have been waiting at the bridge start briskly up the river—a well-manned galley shoots through the arch, the sitters cheering on the boats behind them, which are not yet visible —"Here they are," is the general cry—and through darts the first boat, the men in her stripped to the skin, and exerting every muscle to preserve the advantage they have gained—four other boats follow close astern, there are not two boats’ length between them—the shouting is tremendous, and the interest intense. "Go on, Pink"—"Give it her, Red"—"Sulliwin for ever"—"Brayvo! George"—"Now, Tom, now—now—now—why don’t your partner stretch out?"—"Two pots to a pint on yellow," &c., &c. Every little public-house fires its gun, and hoists its flag; and the men who win the heat, come in, amidst a splashing and shouting, and banging and confusion, which no one can imagine who has not witnessed it, and of which any description would convey a very faint idea. One of the most amusing places we know is the steam wharf of the London-bridge, or St. Katherine’s Dock Company, on a Saturday morning, when the Gravesend and Margate steamers are usually crowded to excess; and as we have just taken a glance at the river above bridge, we hope our readers will not object to accompany us on board a Gravesend packet. Coaches are every moment setting down at the entrance to the wharf, and the stare of bewildered astonishment with which the "fares" resign themselves and their luggage into the hands of the porters, who seize all the packages at once as a matter of course, and run away with them heaven knows where, is laughable in the extreme. A Margate boat lies alongside the wharf, the Gravesend boat (which starts first) lies alongside that again; and as a temporary communication is formed between the two, by means of a plank and hand-rail, the natural confusion of the scene is by no means diminished. "Gravesend?" inquires a stout father of a stout family, who follow him under the guidance of their mother and a servant, at the no small risk of two or three of them being left behind in the confusion. "Gravesend." "Pass on, if you please, Sir," replies the attendant—"other boat, Sir," whereupon the stout father, being rather mystified, and the stout mother rather distracted by maternal anxiety, the whole party deposit themselves in the Margate boat, and after having congratulated himself on having secured very comfortable seats, the stout father sallies to the chimney to look for his luggage, which he has a faint recollection of having given some man something to take somewhere.  No luggage, however, bearing the most remote resemblance to his in shape or form is to be discovered, on which the stout father calls very loudly for an officer, to whom he states the case in the presence of another father of another family—a little thin man, who entirely concurs with him (the stout father) in thinking that it’s high time something was done with these steam companies, and that as the Corporation Bill don't do it, something else must; for really people’s property is not to be sacrificed in this way; and that if the luggage isn’t restored without delay, he will take care it shall be put in the papers, for the public's not to be the victim of these great monopolies; on which the officer in his turn replies, that that company ever since it has been St. Kat’rine’s Dock Company, has protected life and property; that if it had been the London Bridge Wharf Company, indeed he shouldn’t have wondered, seeing that the morality of that company (they being the opposition) can’t be answered for, by no one; but as it is he’s convinced there must be some mistake, and he wouldn’t mind making a solemn oath afore a magistrate that the gentleman’ll find his luggage afore he gets to Margate. Here the stout father thinking he is making a capital point replies that as it happens he an't going to Margate at all, and that "Passenger to Gravesend" was on the luggage in letters of full two inches long, on which the officer rapidly explains the mistake, and the stout mother and the stout children and the servant are hurried with all possible despatch on board the Gravesend-boat, which they reach just in time to discover that their luggage is there, and that their comfortable seats are not. Then the bell, which is the signal for the Gravesend-boat starting, begins to ring most furiously, and people keep time to the bell by running in and out of our boat at a double quick pace: the bell stops, the boat starts: people who have been taking leave of their friends on board, are carried away against their will; and people who have been taking leave of their friends on shore, find that they have performed a very needless ceremony, in consequence of their not being carried away at all. The regular passengers, who have season tickets, go below to breakfast; people who have purchased morning papers, compose themselves to read them; and people who have not been down the river before, think that both the shipping and the water look a great deal better at a distance. When we get down about as far as Blackwall and begin to move at a quicker rate, the spirits of the passengers appear to rise in proportion. Old women who have brought large wicker hand-baskets with them, set seriously to work at the demolition of heavy sandwiches, and pass round a wine-glass, which is frequently replenished from a flat bottle like a stomach-warmer, with considerable glee, handing it first to the gentleman in the foraging-cap, who plays the harp—partly as an expression of satisfaction with his previous exertions, and partly to induce him to play "Dumbledumbdeary," for "Alick" to dance to; which being done, Alick, who is a damp earthy-looking child, in red worsted socks, takes certain small jumps upon the deck, to the unspeakable satisfaction of his family circle. Girls who have brought the first volume of some new novel in their reticule, become extremely plaintive, and expatiate to Mr. Brown, or young Mr. O’Brien, who has been looking over them, on the blueness of the sky, and brightness of the water; on which Mr. Brown or Mr. O’Brien, as the case may be, remarks in a low voice that he has been quite insensible of late to the beauties of nature—that his whole thoughts and wishes have centered in one object alone—whereupon the young lady looks up, and failing in her attempt to appear unconscious, looks down again; and turns over the next leaf with great difficulty in order to afford opportunity for a lengthened pressure of the hand. Telescopes, sandwiches, and glasses of brandy-and-water cold-without, begin to be in great requisition; and bashful men who have been looking down the hatchway at the engine, find to their great relief, a subject on which they can converse with one another—and a copious one too—Steam— "Wonderful thing steam, Sir." "Ah! (a deep-drawn sigh) it is indeed, Sir"—"great power, Sir."— "Immense—immense;"—"Great deal done by steam, Sir."—"Ah (another sigh at the immensity of the subject, and a knowing shake of the head)! you may say that, Sir." "Still in its infancy, they say Sir," and other novel remarks of this kind, are generally the commencement of a conversation which is prolonged until the conclusion of the trip—not a long one on the water; nor we hope no paper either. If the trip should have appeared tedious, our good humour returns the moment we reach the pier; and if our description should have unfortunately done so too, we hope our readers will forget it the instant they leave—The River. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIV_Our_Parish_[II]/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XVI_Our_Parish_II.pdf a84b23dd87d7acd9a758486f05b7f902 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350618 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. The row of houses in which our friends the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, contains, we think, within its circumscribed limits, a greater number of characters than all the rest of our parish put together. When we say that we live in the row ourselves, we have not the slightest intention to insinuate that we can lay claim to any particular characteristics. We merely mention the fact, in order that the statement may have the authority of our own personal observation and experience; and we present our readers occasionally with a slight sketch of the materials we have collected from this source, in the hope that an attempted delineation of character now and then will vary the numerous scenes we undertook to describe when we entitled these papers, "Sketches of London." There is a family who live very near the old lady— two doors removed on the left-hand side—to which we must beg to introduce our readers without further delay. The four Miss Willises settled in our parish thirteen years ago: it is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, "time and tide wait for no man," applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile; our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state that thirteen years since the authorities in matrimonial cases considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papers from top to bottom; the paint inside was all wainscoted; the marble all cleaned; the old grates taken down and register-stoves, you could see to dress in, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden; several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one; vans of elegant furniture arrived; spring blinds were fitted to the windows; carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid servants told their "Missises;" the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property. At last the Miss Willises moved in; and then the "calling" began. The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis was ever seen out of her's. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition—like a school-dinner—of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises became bilious immediately—The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—The four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did the others did, and whatever anybody else did they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among themselves; and as they sometimes went out, or saw company "in a quiet-way" at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked-for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible! one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married! Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office with a good salary and a little property of his own beside) were received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair—and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of Miss Willis—"We are going to marry Mr. Robinson." It was very extraordinary; they were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card table and tea-drinking; the old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety didn't hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated marrying the whole family at once; and the row generally shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well;—it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go upon; and certainly the Miss Willises were quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth. At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o'clock, A.M., two glass coaches drove up to the Miss Willises' door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light blue coat and a double milled kersey pantaloons, white neck-kerchief, pumps, and dress gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook, who opened the door, wore a large white bow, of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted the somewhat excursive taste of female servants in general. The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house; it was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first and second-floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation. The Miss Willises' door opened; the door of the first glass coach did the same; two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond—friends of the family no doubt; up went the steps, bang went the door; off went the first glass coach, and up came the second. The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased - Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. "I thought so," said the lady at No. 19, "I always said it was Miss Willis!" "Well I never!" ejaculated the young lady at No. 18, to the young lady at No. 17—"Did you ever, dear!" responded the young lady at No. 17, to the young lady at No. 18. "It's too ridiculous!" exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall pourtray the astonishment of Gordon-place when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace after the other glass-coach; which other glass coach had itself proceeded at a brisk pace in the direction of the parish church. Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergy-man when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice?—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings! As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours would ever have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description. Coming events cast their shadows before, and events like that at which we hint with becoming delicacy and diffidence, will happen occasionally in the best regulated families—indeed the best regulated are usually supposed to be the most subject to such occurrences. Three quarter days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the steps about nine or ten o'clock every morning, with "Missis's compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?" And the answer always was, "Mrs. Robinson's compliments, and she's in very good spirits, and doesn't find herself any worse." The piano was heard no longer—the knitting-needles were laid aside—drawing was neglected—and mantua-making and millinery on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn't quite as tidy as it used to be; and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps—rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll—with a small piece of lace in the shape of a horse-shoe let in behind, or perhaps a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once when we called we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin down each side, the probable use of which we were at a loss to conjecture. Then we fanced that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney coach stop at Mrs. Robinson's door at half-past two o'clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman in a cloak and night cap, with a bundle in one hand and a pair of pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some purpose of other; and when we got up in the morning we saw the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove, and we, in our innocence (we are in a state of bachelorship), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propriá persona, say with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, "My compliments and Mrs. Robinson's doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully." And then, in common with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was before. Official parish registers of marriages, births, christenings, and deaths, are not generally considered to possess any amusement or much interest, except for those who are personally connected with some individual record contained within their musty leaves. Our parish register will have, at least, three advantages—it will be easy of access, it will be faithfully entered up from time to time, and it will at least be penned with a humble desire to amuse those who may consult it. As we dare not occupy any greater space at this busy period, we have only to add that we must defer any further account of the four Miss Willises until another opportunity; that we propose in future publishing a parochial sketch alternately with one coming more immediately under our first heading; and that from this time forward we shall make no further apology for an abrupt conclusion to an article under the title of "Our Parish," than is contained in the words "To be continued." TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II). The Evening Chronicle (18 June 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XIV, Our Parish' (II) Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (18 June 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350618/019/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-06-18 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVI, Our Parish (II)' (18 June 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-18_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVI_Our_ParishII</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. The row of houses in which our friends the old lady and her troublesome neighbour reside, contains, we think, within its circumscribed limits, a greater number of characters than all the rest of our parish put together. When we say that we live in the row ourselves, we have not the slightest intention to insinuate that we can lay claim to any particular characteristics. We merely mention the fact, in order that the statement may have the authority of our own personal observation and experience; and we present our readers occasionally with a slight sketch of the materials we have collected from this source, in the hope that an attempted delineation of character now and then will vary the numerous scenes we undertook to describe when we entitled these papers, "Sketches of London."  There is a family who live very near the old lady— two doors removed on the left-hand side—to which we must beg to introduce our readers without further delay. The four Miss Willises settled in our parish thirteen years ago: it is a melancholy reflection that the old adage, "time and tide wait for no man," applies with equal force to the fairer portion of the creation; and willingly would we conceal the fact, that even thirteen years ago the Miss Willises were far from juvenile; our duty as faithful parochial chroniclers, however, is paramount to every other consideration, and we are bound to state that thirteen years since the authorities in matrimonial cases considered the youngest Miss Willis in a very precarious state, while the eldest sister was positively given over as being far beyond all human hope. Well, the Miss Willises took a lease of the house; it was fresh painted and papers from top to bottom; the paint inside was all wainscoted; the marble all cleaned; the old grates taken down and register-stoves, you could see to dress in, put up; four trees were planted in the back garden; several small baskets of gravel sprinkled over the front one; vans of elegant furniture arrived; spring blinds were fitted to the windows; carpenters who had been employed in the various preparations, alterations, and repairs, made confidential statements to the different maid servants in the row, relative to the magnificent scale on which the Miss Willises were commencing; the maid servants told their "Missises;" the Missises told their friends, and vague rumours were circulated throughout the parish, that No. 25, in Gordon-place, had been taken by four maiden ladies of immense property. At last the Miss Willises moved in; and then the "calling" began. The house was the perfection of neatness—so were the four Miss Willises. Everything was formal, stiff, and cold—so were the four Miss Willises. Not a single chair of the whole set was ever seen out of its place—not a single Miss Willis was ever seen out of her's. There they always sat, in the same places, doing precisely the same things at the same hour. The eldest Miss Willis used to knit, the second to draw, the two others to play duets on the piano. They seemed to have no separate existence, but to have made up their minds just to winter through life together. They were three long graces in drapery, with the addition—like a school-dinner—of another long grace afterwards—the three fates with another sister—the Siamese twins multiplied by two. The eldest Miss Willis grew bilious—the four Miss Willises became bilious immediately—The eldest Miss Willis grew ill-tempered and religious—The four Miss Willises were ill-tempered and religious directly. Whatever the eldest did the others did, and whatever anybody else did they all disapproved of; and thus they vegetated—living in Polar harmony among themselves; and as they sometimes went out, or saw company "in a quiet-way" at home, occasionally icing the neighbours. Three years passed over in this way, when an unlooked-for and extraordinary phenomenon occurred. The Miss Willises showed symptoms of summer, the frost gradually broke up; a complete thaw took place. Was it possible! one of the four Miss Willises was going to be married! Now, where on earth the husband came from, by what feelings the poor man could have been actuated, or by what process of reasoning the four Miss Willises succeeded in persuading themselves that it was possible for a man to marry one of them without marrying them all, are questions too profound for us to resolve: certain it is, however, that the visits of Mr. Robinson (a gentleman in a public office with a good salary and a little property of his own beside) were received—that the four Miss Willises were courted in due form by the said Mr. Robinson—that the neighbours were perfectly frantic to discover which of the four Miss Willises was the fortunate fair—and that the difficulty they experienced in solving the problem was not at all lessened by the announcement of Miss Willis—"We are going to marry Mr. Robinson." It was very extraordinary; they were so completely identified, the one with the other, that the curiosity of the whole row—even of the old lady herself—was roused almost beyond endurance. The subject was discussed at every little card table and tea-drinking; the old gentleman of silk-worm notoriety didn't hesitate to express his decided opinion that Mr. Robinson was of Eastern descent, and contemplated marrying the whole family at once; and the row generally shook their heads with considerable gravity, and declared the business to be very mysterious. They hoped it might all end well;—it certainly had a very singular appearance, but still it would be uncharitable to express any opinion without good grounds to go upon; and certainly the Miss Willises were quite old enough to judge for themselves, and to be sure people ought to know their own business best, and so forth. At last, one fine morning, at a quarter before eight o'clock, A.M., two glass coaches drove up to the Miss Willises' door, at which Mr. Robinson had arrived in a cab ten minutes before, dressed in a light blue coat and a double milled kersey pantaloons, white neck-kerchief, pumps, and dress gloves, his manner denoting, as appeared from the evidence of the housemaid at No. 23, who was sweeping the door-steps at the time, a considerable degree of nervous excitement. It was also hastily reported on the same testimony, that the cook, who opened the door, wore a large white bow, of unusual dimensions, in a much smarter head-dress than the regulation cap to which the Miss Willises invariably restricted the somewhat excursive taste of female servants in general. The intelligence spread rapidly from house to house; it was quite clear that the eventful morning had at length arrived; the whole row stationed themselves behind their first and second-floor blinds, and waited the result in breathless expectation. The Miss Willises' door opened; the door of the first glass coach did the same; two gentlemen, and a pair of ladies to correspond—friends of the family no doubt; up went the steps, bang went the door; off went the first glass coach, and up came the second. The street door opened again; the excitement of the whole row increased - Mr. Robinson and the eldest Miss Willis. "I thought so," said the lady at No. 19, "I always said it was Miss Willis!" "Well I never!" ejaculated the young lady at No. 18, to the young lady at No. 17—"Did you ever, dear!" responded the young lady at No. 17, to the young lady at No. 18. "It's too ridiculous!" exclaimed a spinster of an uncertain age, at No. 16, joining in the conversation. But who shall pourtray the astonishment of Gordon-place when Mr. Robinson handed in all the Miss Willises, one after the other, and then squeezed himself into an acute angle of the glass coach, which forthwith proceeded at a brisk pace after the other glass-coach; which other glass coach had itself proceeded at a brisk pace in the direction of the parish church. Who shall depict the perplexity of the clergy-man when all the Miss Willises knelt down at the communion table, and repeated the responses incidental to the marriage service in an audible voice?—or who shall describe the confusion which prevailed, when—even after the difficulties thus occasioned had been adjusted—all the Miss Willises went into hysterics at the conclusion of the ceremony until the sacred edifice resounded with their united wailings!  As the four sisters and Mr. Robinson continued to occupy the same house after this memorable occasion, and as the married sister, whoever she was, never appeared in public without the other three, we are not quite clear that the neighbours would ever have discovered the real Mrs. Robinson but for a circumstance of the most gratifying description. Coming events cast their shadows before, and events like that at which we hint with becoming delicacy and diffidence, will happen occasionally in the best regulated families—indeed the best regulated are usually supposed to be the most subject to such occurrences. Three quarter days elapsed, and the row, on whom a new light appeared to have been bursting for some time, began to speak with a sort of implied confidence on the subject, and to wonder how Mrs. Robinson—the youngest Miss Willis that was—got on; and servants might be seen running up the steps about nine or ten o'clock every morning, with "Missis's compliments, and wishes to know how Mrs. Robinson finds herself this morning?" And the answer always was, "Mrs. Robinson's compliments, and she's in very good spirits, and doesn't find herself any worse." The piano was heard no longer—the knitting-needles were laid aside—drawing was neglected—and mantua-making and millinery on the smallest scale imaginable, appeared to have become the favourite amusement of the whole family. The parlour wasn't quite as tidy as it used to be; and if you called in the morning, you would see lying on a table, with an old newspaper carelessly thrown over them, two or three particularly small caps—rather larger than if they had been made for a moderate-sized doll—with a small piece of lace in the shape of a horse-shoe let in behind, or perhaps a white robe, not very large in circumference, but very much out of proportion in point of length, with a little tucker round the top, and a frill round the bottom; and once when we called we saw a long white roller, with a kind of blue margin down each side, the probable use of which we were at a loss to conjecture. Then we fanced that Mr. Dawson, the surgeon, &c., who displays a large lamp with a different colour in every pane of glass, at the corner of the row, began to be knocked up at night oftener than he used to be; and once we were very much alarmed by hearing a hackney coach stop at Mrs. Robinson's door at half-past two o'clock in the morning, out of which there emerged a fat old woman in a cloak and night cap, with a bundle in one hand and a pair of pattens in the other, who looked as if she had been suddenly knocked up out of bed for some purpose of other; and when we got up in the morning we saw the knocker was tied up in an old white kid glove, and we, in our innocence (we are in a state of bachelorship), wondered what on earth it all meant, until we heard the eldest Miss Willis, in propriá persona, say with great dignity, in answer to the next inquiry, "My compliments and Mrs. Robinson's doing as well as can be expected, and the little girl thrives wonderfully." And then, in common with the rest of the row, our curiosity was satisfied, and we began to wonder it had never occurred to us what the matter was before. Official parish registers of marriages, births, christenings, and deaths, are not generally considered to possess any amusement or much interest, except for those who are personally connected with some individual record contained within their musty leaves. Our parish register will have, at least, three advantages—it will be easy of access, it will be faithfully entered up from time to time, and it will at least be penned with a humble desire to amuse those who may consult it. As we dare not occupy any greater space at this busy period, we have only to add that we must defer any further account of the four Miss Willises until another opportunity; that we propose in future publishing a parochial sketch alternately with one coming more immediately under our first heading; and that from this time forward we shall make no further apology for an abrupt conclusion to an article under the title of "Our Parish," than is contained in the words "To be continued." https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XIX_Private_Theatres.pdf 3e60bf5dffd9cedc6678b2df000a38b3 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350811 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. "RICHARD THE THIRD. DUKE OF GLO’STER 2l. EARL OF RICHMOND, 1l. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 15s. CATESBY, 12s. TRESSEL, 10s. 6d. LORD STANLEY, 5s. LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, 2s. 6d." Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen’s dressing-room or the green-room (where there is any) at a private theatre; and such are the sums extracted from the shop-till, or overcharged in the office expenditure, by the idiotic donkies who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Glo’ster's well worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself, must wear a real sword, and what is better still, must draw it several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings; then ther's the stabbing King Henry—decidedly cheap at three and sixpence; that’s eighteen and sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers—say eighteen pence, though it’s worth much more—that’s a pound. Then the love scene with Lady Anne, and the bustle of the fourth act can’t be dear at ten shillings more—that’s only one pound ten, including the "off with his head!"—which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do—"Orf with is ed" (very quick and loud, then slow and sneeringly)—"So much for Bu-u-u-uckingham!;" lay the emphasis on the "uck;" get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand while your’e saying it, as if you were feeling your way; and its sure to do. The tent scene is confessedly worth half-a-sovereign, and so you have the fight in, gratis; and everybody knows what an effect may be produced by a good combat. One—two— three—four—over; then, one—two—three—four— under; then thrust; then dodge and slide about; then fall down on one knee; then get up again and stagger. You may keep on doing this, as long as it seems to take—say ten minutes—and then fall down (backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself), and die game. Nothing like it for producing an effect. They always do it at Astley’s and Sadler’s Wells, and if they don’t know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does? A small child or a female in white increases the interest of a combat materially—indeed we don't think a regular legitimate terrific broad-sword combat could be done without; but it would be rather difficult, and somewhat unusual, to introduce this effect in the last scene of Richard the Third; so the only thing to be done is, just to make the best of a bad bargain, and be as long as possible fighting it out. The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys; low copying-clerks, in attornies’ offices; capacious headed youths from city counting-houses; Jews, whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur stage; shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters’ money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene painter, a low coffee-house keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a Chancery officer, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine-street, Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane, or the vicinity of Sadler’s-wells; or it may, perhaps, form the chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of society; and the audiences are necessarily of much the same character as the performers, who receive in return for their contributions to the management tickets to the amount of the money they pay. All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood. Each of them has an audience exclusively its own, and at any you will see dropping into the pit at half-price, or swaggering into the back of a box, if the price of admission be a reduced one, divers boys of from 15 to 21 years of age, who throw back their coats, and turn up their wristbands, after the portraits of Count D’Orsay, hum tunes and whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the people near them that they are not at all anxious to have it up again, and speak familiarly of the inferior performers as Bill Such-a-one, and Ned So-and-so, or tell each other how a new piece called The Unknown Bandit of the Invisible Cavern is in rehearsal; how Mister Palmer is to play The Unknown Bandit; how Charley Scarton is to take the part of an English sailor, and fight a broad-sword combat with six unknown bandits at one and the same time (one theatrical sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least); how Mister Palmer and Charley Scarton are to go through a double hornpipe in fetters in the second act; how the interior of the invisible cavern is to occupy the whole extent of the stage, and other town—surprising theatrical announcements. These are your amateurs—these are the Richards, Shylocks, Beverleys, and Othellos—the Young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces—of a private theatre. See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatrical coffee-shop! Why, they're the kings of the place, supposing no real performers to be present; and roll-about, hats on one side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they had actually come into possession of eighteen shillings a week, and a share of a ticket night. If one of them does but know an Astley’s supernumerary he is a happy fellow. Look at that youth. You must have remarked the mingled air of envy and admiration with which his companions will regard him as he converses familiarly with the mouldy-looking man in a fancy neck-kerchief, whose partially corked eyebrows, and half rouged face, testify to the fact of his having just left the stage or the circle. Observe the indignation with which the man of mouldy appearance points to a newspaper of the day, and the perplexed air with which, after upsetting his half pint of coffee over that dirty scrap of paper, and then wiping it with his still dirtier pocket-handkerchief, his amateur friend attempts to scrawl a note, apparently to the editor. Poor creature! his visions of orthography are of the wildest; and he tortures pot-hooks into forms as distorted and unnatural as those into which his mouldy companion's unfortunate frame was twisted, when he first took lessons in the art of tumbling! With the double view of guarding against the discovery of friends or employers, and enhancing the interest of an assumed character, by attaching a high-sounding name to its representative, these geniuses assume fictitious cognomens, which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a private theatre. Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the humblest; and the less-imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thompson, Huggins, Barker, Solomons, &c., are completely laid aside. There is something imposing in this, and it's an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trowsers—nay even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances are very uncommon among the members of the corps dramatique), may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. Then it prevents any troublesome inquiries or explanations about employment and pursuits: everybody is a gentleman at large for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies (God bless 'em) they're quite above any formal absurdities, the mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society—for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt; and, as to the manager, he is all affability when he knows you well,—or, in other words, when he has pocketed your money once, and entertains confident hopes of doing so again. A quarter before eight—There'll be a full house to-night—six parties in the boxes already; four little boys and a woman in the pit; and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five overtures since seven o’clock (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances) and have just begun the sixth. There'll be plenty of it though when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to last six hours at least. That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O. P. side, is Mr. Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His line is genteel comedy—his father’s coal and tatur. He does Alfred Highflyer in the last piece, and very well he’ll do it—at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of the night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly; each member of the party, with his feet cocked up on the cushion in front of the box? They let 'em do these things here upon the same humane principle which permits poor people’s children to knock double knocks at the door of an empty house—because they can’t do it anywhere else. The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the proprietor's—opulent country managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain— opulent country managers looking out for recruirts, a representation which Mr. Nathan the dresser, who is in the manager’s interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once. The stout Jewess who has just entered is the mother of the pale bony little girl with the necklace of blue glass beads, sitting by her. She is being brought up to "the profession." Patomime is to be her line, and she's coming out to-night, in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white face is deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt front is inlaid with open work, and embossed with coral studs like Lady Bird's, is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of dupes and blackguards. The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the wicks of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes are being turned up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence of dirt and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feasure in the audience part of the house. As these preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep "behind," previous to the ringing-up. The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither especially clean, nor too brilliantly lighted; and the absence of any flooring, together with the damp, mildewy smell which pervades the places, does not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance. Don’t fall over this plate basket—it’s one of the "properties"—the cauldron for the witches’ cave; and the three uncouth-looking figures with broken clothes-props in their hands, who are drinking gin and water out of a pint pot, are the weird sisters. This miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces placed at lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole in the ceiling is the trap door of the stage above. You will observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards, and tastefully hung with cob-webs. The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff-shop-looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo, and the young lady with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hare’s foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large woman who is consulting the stage directions in Cumberland’s edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night—she is always selected to play the part, because she's tall and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons—at a considerable distance. That stupid-looking milksop with light hair and bow legs—a kind of man whom you can warrant town-made—is fresh caught; he plays Malcolm to-night, just to accustom himself to an audience. He'll get on by degrees; he'll play Othello in a month, and in a month more will very probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly, is dressed for the "gentlewoman." It's her first appearance, too—in that character. The boy of fourteen, who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland; and the two dirty men with the corked countenances, in very old green tunics and dirty drab boots, are the "army." "Look sharp below there, gents," exclaims the dresser, a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap, "they’re a-going to ring up. The flute says he’ll be blowed if he plays any more, and they’re getting precious noisy in front." A general rush immediately takes place to the half dozen little steep steps leading to the stage, and the heterogeneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes in breathless anxiety and motley confusion. "Now," cries the manager, consulting the written list which hangs behind the first P. S, wing, "Scene 1, open country—lamps down—thunder and lightning—all ready, White?" [this is addressed to one of the army]. "All ready"—"Very well, scene 2 - front chamber; is the front chamber down?" "Yes." "Very well—Jones."—[To the other army who is up in the flies:] "Hallo! Wind up the open country when we ring up." "I’ll take care," growls the elevated army.—"Scene 3, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge ready, White? Got the tressels there?" "All right," responds the functionary. "Very well. Clear the stage," adds the manager, hastily packing every member of the company into the little space there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and another. "Places, places, now then witches—Duncan—Malcolm—bloody officer—where’s that bloody officer?"—"Here!" replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character. "Get ready, then; now, White, ring the second music bell." The actors who are to be discovered are hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be discovered place themselves, in their anxiety to peep at the house, just where the whole audience can see them. The bell rings, and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct chords. The bell rings again, the tragedy (!) opens, and our description closes. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres.' The Evening Chronicle (11 August 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres' Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (11 August 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350811/016/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-08-11 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XIX, Private Theatres' (11 August 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-08-11_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXIX_Private_Theatres</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. "RICHARD THE THIRD. DUKE OF GLO’STER 2l. EARL OF RICHMOND, 1l. DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM, 15s. CATESBY, 12s. TRESSEL, 10s. 6d. LORD STANLEY, 5s. LORD MAYOR OF LONDON, 2s. 6d." Such are the written placards wafered up in the gentlemen’s dressing-room or the green-room (where there is any) at a private theatre; and such are the sums extracted from the shop-till, or overcharged in the office expenditure, by the idiotic donkies who are prevailed upon to pay for permission to exhibit their lamentable ignorance and boobyism on the stage of a private theatre. This they do, in proportion to the scope afforded by the character for the display of their imbecility. For instance, the Duke of Glo’ster's well worth two pounds, because he has it all to himself, must wear a real sword, and what is better still, must draw it several times in the course of the piece. The soliloquies alone are well worth fifteen shillings; then ther's the stabbing King Henry—decidedly cheap at three and sixpence; that’s eighteen and sixpence; bullying the coffin-bearers—say eighteen pence, though it’s worth much more—that’s a pound. Then the love scene with Lady Anne, and the bustle of the fourth act can’t be dear at ten shillings more—that’s only one pound ten, including the "off with his head!"—which is sure to bring down the applause, and it is very easy to do—"Orf with is ed" (very quick and loud, then slow and sneeringly)—"So much for Bu-u-u-uckingham!;" lay the emphasis on the "uck;" get yourself gradually into a corner, and work with your right hand while your’e saying it, as if you were feeling your way; and its sure to do. The tent scene is confessedly worth half-a-sovereign, and so you have the fight in, gratis; and everybody knows what an effect may be produced by a good combat. One—two— three—four—over; then, one—two—three—four— under; then thrust; then dodge and slide about; then fall down on one knee; then get up again and stagger.  You may keep on doing this, as long as it seems to take—say ten minutes—and then fall down (backwards, if you can manage it without hurting yourself), and die game. Nothing like it for producing an effect. They always do it at Astley’s and Sadler’s Wells, and if they don’t know how to do this sort of thing, who in the world does? A small child or a female in white increases the interest of a combat materially—indeed we don't think a regular legitimate terrific broad-sword combat could be done without; but it would be rather difficult, and somewhat unusual, to introduce this effect in the last scene of Richard the Third; so the only thing to be done is, just to make the best of a bad bargain, and be as long as possible fighting it out. The principal patrons of private theatres are dirty boys; low copying-clerks, in attornies’ offices; capacious headed youths from city counting-houses; Jews, whose business, as lenders of fancy dresses, is a sure passport to the amateur stage; shop-boys who now and then mistake their masters’ money for their own; and a choice miscellany of idle vagabonds. The proprietor of a private theatre may be an ex-scene painter, a low coffee-house keeper, a disappointed eighth-rate actor, a Chancery officer, a retired smuggler, or uncertificated bankrupt. The theatre itself may be in Catherine-street, Strand, the purlieus of the city, the neighbourhood of Gray’s-inn-lane, or the vicinity of Sadler’s-wells; or it may, perhaps, form the chief nuisance of some shabby street, on the Surrey side of Waterloo bridge. The lady performers pay nothing for their characters, and it is needless to add, are usually selected from one class of society; and the audiences are necessarily of much the same character as the performers, who receive in return for their contributions to the management tickets to the amount of the money they pay. All the minor theatres in London, especially the lowest, constitute the centre of a little stage-struck neighbourhood. Each of them has an audience exclusively its own, and at any you will see dropping into the pit at half-price, or swaggering into the back of a box, if the price of admission be a reduced one, divers boys of from 15 to 21 years of age, who throw back their coats, and turn up their wristbands, after the portraits of Count D’Orsay, hum tunes and whistle when the curtain is down, by way of persuading the people near them that they are not at all anxious to have it up again, and speak familiarly of the inferior performers as Bill Such-a-one, and Ned So-and-so, or tell each other how a new piece called The Unknown Bandit of the Invisible Cavern is in rehearsal; how Mister Palmer is to play The Unknown Bandit; how Charley Scarton is to take the part of an English sailor, and fight a broad-sword combat with six unknown bandits at one and the same time (one theatrical sailor is always equal to half a dozen men at least); how Mister Palmer and Charley Scarton are to go through a double hornpipe in fetters in the second act; how the interior of the invisible cavern is to occupy the whole extent of the stage, and other town—surprising theatrical announcements. These are your amateurs—these are the Richards, Shylocks, Beverleys, and Othellos—the Young Dorntons, Rovers, Captain Absolutes, and Charles Surfaces—of a private theatre. See them at the neighbouring public-house or the theatrical coffee-shop! Why, they're the kings of the place, supposing no real performers to be present; and roll-about, hats on one side, and arms a-kimbo, as if they had actually come into possession of eighteen shillings a week, and a share of a ticket night. If one of them does but know an Astley’s supernumerary he is a happy fellow. Look at that youth. You must have remarked the mingled air of envy and admiration with which his companions will regard him as he converses familiarly with the mouldy-looking man in a fancy neck-kerchief, whose partially corked eyebrows, and half rouged face, testify to the fact of his having just left the stage or the circle. Observe the indignation with which the man of mouldy appearance points to a newspaper of the day, and the perplexed air with which, after upsetting his half pint of coffee over that dirty scrap of paper, and then wiping it with his still dirtier pocket-handkerchief, his amateur friend attempts to scrawl a note, apparently to the editor. Poor creature! his visions of orthography are of the wildest; and he tortures pot-hooks into forms as distorted and unnatural as those into which his mouldy companion's unfortunate frame was twisted, when he first took lessons in the art of tumbling! With the double view of guarding against the discovery of friends or employers, and enhancing the interest of an assumed character, by attaching a high-sounding name to its representative, these geniuses assume fictitious cognomens, which are not the least amusing part of the play-bill of a private theatre. Belville, Melville, Treville, Berkeley, Randolph, Byron, St. Clair, and so forth, are among the humblest; and the less-imposing titles of Jenkins, Walker, Thompson, Huggins, Barker, Solomons, &c., are completely laid aside. There is something imposing in this, and it's an excellent apology for shabbiness into the bargain. A shrunken, faded coat, a decayed hat, a patched and soiled pair of trowsers—nay even a very dirty shirt (and none of these appearances are very uncommon among the members of the corps dramatique), may be worn for the purpose of disguise, and to prevent the remotest chance of recognition. Then it prevents any troublesome inquiries or explanations about employment and pursuits: everybody is a gentleman at large for the occasion, and there are none of those unpleasant and unnecessary distinctions to which even genius must occasionally succumb elsewhere. As to the ladies (God bless 'em) they're quite above any formal absurdities, the mere circumstance of your being behind the scenes is a sufficient introduction to their society—for of course they know that none but strictly respectable persons would be admitted into that close fellowship with them, which acting engenders. They place implicit reliance on the manager, no doubt; and, as to the manager, he is all affability when he knows you well,—or, in other words, when he has pocketed your money once, and entertains confident hopes of doing so again. A quarter before eight—There'll be a full house to-night—six parties in the boxes already; four little boys and a woman in the pit; and two fiddles and a flute in the orchestra, who have got through five overtures since seven o’clock (the hour fixed for the commencement of the performances) and have just begun the sixth. There'll be plenty of it though when it does begin, for there is enough in the bill to last six hours at least. That gentleman in the white hat and checked shirt, brown coat and brass buttons, lounging behind the stage-box on the O. P. side, is Mr. Horatio St. Julien, alias Jem Larkins. His line is genteel comedy—his father’s coal and tatur. He does Alfred Highflyer in the last piece, and very well he’ll do it—at the price. The party of gentlemen in the opposite box, to whom he has just nodded, are friends and supporters of Mr. Beverley (otherwise Loggins), the Macbeth of the night. You observe their attempts to appear easy and gentlemanly; each member of the party, with his feet cocked up on the cushion in front of the box? They let 'em do these things here upon the same humane principle which permits poor people’s children to knock double knocks at the door of an empty house—because they can’t do it anywhere else. The two stout men in the centre box, with an opera-glass ostentatiously placed before them, are friends of the proprietor's—opulent country managers, as he confidentially informs every individual among the crew behind the curtain— opulent country managers looking out for recruirts, a representation which Mr. Nathan the dresser, who is in the manager’s interest, and has just arrived with the costumes, offers to confirm upon oath if required—corroborative evidence, however, is quite unnecessary, for the gulls believe it at once. The stout Jewess who has just entered is the mother of the pale bony little girl with the necklace of blue glass beads, sitting by her. She is being brought up to "the profession."  Patomime is to be her line, and she's coming out to-night, in a hornpipe after the tragedy. The short thin man beside Mr. St. Julien, whose white face is deeply seared with the small-pox, and whose dirty shirt front is inlaid with open work, and embossed with coral studs like Lady Bird's, is the low comedian and comic singer of the establishment. The remainder of the audience—a tolerably numerous one by this time—are a motley group of dupes and blackguards. The foot-lights have just made their appearance: the wicks of the six little oil lamps round the only tier of boxes are being turned up, and the additional light thus afforded serves to show the presence of dirt and absence of paint, which forms a prominent feasure in the audience part of the house.  As these preparations, however, announce the speedy commencement of the play, let us take a peep "behind," previous to the ringing-up. The little narrow passages beneath the stage are neither especially clean, nor too brilliantly lighted; and the absence of any flooring, together with the damp, mildewy smell which pervades the places, does not conduce in any great degree to their comfortable appearance. Don’t fall over this plate basket—it’s one of the "properties"—the cauldron for the witches’ cave; and the three uncouth-looking figures with broken clothes-props in their hands, who are drinking gin and water out of a pint pot, are the weird sisters. This miserable room, lighted by candles in sconces placed at lengthened intervals round the wall, is the dressing-room common to the gentlemen performers, and the square hole in the ceiling is the trap door of the stage above. You will observe that the ceiling is ornamented with the beams that support the boards, and tastefully hung with cob-webs. The characters in the tragedy are all dressed, and their own clothes are scattered in hurried confusion over the wooden dresser which surrounds the room. That snuff-shop-looking figure in front of the glass is Banquo, and the young lady with the liberal display of legs, who is kindly painting his face with a hare’s foot, is dressed for Fleance. The large woman who is consulting the stage directions in Cumberland’s edition of Macbeth, is the Lady Macbeth of the night—she is always selected to play the part, because she's tall and stout, and looks a little like Mrs. Siddons—at a considerable distance. That stupid-looking milksop with light hair and bow legs—a kind of man whom you can warrant town-made—is fresh caught; he plays Malcolm to-night, just to accustom himself to an audience. He'll get on by degrees; he'll play Othello in a month, and in a month more will very probably be apprehended on a charge of embezzlement. The black-eyed female with whom he is talking so earnestly, is dressed for the "gentlewoman." It's her first appearance, too—in that character. The boy of fourteen, who is having his eyebrows smeared with soap and whitening, is Duncan, King of Scotland; and the two dirty men with the corked countenances, in very old green tunics and dirty drab boots, are the "army." "Look sharp below there, gents," exclaims the dresser, a red-headed and red-whiskered Jew, calling through the trap, "they’re a-going to ring up. The flute says he’ll be blowed if he plays any more, and they’re getting precious noisy in front." A general rush immediately takes place to the half dozen little steep steps leading to the stage, and the heterogeneous group are soon assembled at the side scenes in breathless anxiety and motley confusion. "Now," cries the manager, consulting the written list which hangs behind the first P. S, wing, "Scene 1, open country—lamps down—thunder and lightning—all ready, White?" [this is addressed to one of the army]. "All ready"—"Very well, scene 2 - front chamber; is the front chamber down?" "Yes." "Very well—Jones."—[To the other army who is up in the flies:] "Hallo! Wind up the open country when we ring up." "I’ll take care," growls the elevated army.—"Scene 3, back perspective with practical bridge. Bridge ready, White? Got the tressels there?" "All right," responds the functionary. "Very well. Clear the stage," adds the manager, hastily packing every member of the company into the little space there is between the wings and the wall, and one wing and another. "Places, places, now then witches—Duncan—Malcolm—bloody officer—where’s that bloody officer?"—"Here!" replies the officer, who has been rose-pinking for the character. "Get ready, then; now, White, ring the second music bell." The actors who are to be discovered are hastily arranged, and the actors who are not to be discovered place themselves, in their anxiety to peep at the house, just where the whole audience can see them. The bell rings, and the orchestra, in acknowledgment of the call, play three distinct chords. The bell rings again, the tragedy (!) opens, and our description closes. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbroker_s_Shop/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_No._XV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.pdf 4a40bf40b62592555e2d078409ed1efc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350630 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. Of all the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which present such striking scenes of vice and poverty as the pawnbrokers' shops. The very nature and description of these places prevents their being but little known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer: the subject may appear, at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned, it will present at all events nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader. There are some pawnbrokers' shops of a very superior description. There are grades in pawning as in everything else; and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak, and the plebeian calico shirt—the silver fork and the flat-iron—the muslin cravat and the Belcher neck-kerchief, would assort but ill together; so the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers' shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will endeavour to describe it. The pawnbroker's shop is situated near Drury-lane, at the corner of a court, which affords a side-entrance for the accommodation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully, a little way open, half-inviting, half-repelling the hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as if he contemplated making the purchase; and then looking cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks in; the door closing of itself after him to just its former width. The shop-front and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once painted; but what the colour was originally, or at what date it was originally laid on, are, at this remote period, questions which may be asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency on the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words "Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property," but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared together with the announcement; for the articles of stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups, some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers, playing three Spanish guitars, or a party of boors carousing, each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety—several sets of chess-men, two or three flutes, a few fiddles—a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground, some gaudily bound prayer-books and testaments—two rows of silver watches, quite as clumsy, and almost as large as Ferguson's first—numerous old fashioned table and tea-spoons displayed, fan-like, in half-dozens—strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps—cards of rings and brooches fastened and labelled separately like the insects in the British Museum—cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six beds in smeary, clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part of the articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other carpenters' tools, which have been pledged, and never redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames, full of ticketted bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement up stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the adjoining houses, straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy, unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest hazard of the heads of the passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries. If the outside of the pawnbroker's shop be calculated to attract the attention, or excite the interest of the speculative pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in a very increased degree. The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such scenes render them indifferent to the observations of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a small passage, from which some half dozen doors (which may be secured on the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens or closets, which face the counter. Here the more timid, or respectable portion of the crowd, shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard, shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. At the present moment this elegantly attired individual is in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out in a thick book, a process from which he is diverted occasionally by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allusions to "that last bottle of soda-water last night"—and "how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young ooman gave 'em in charge," would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The customers generally, however, seem rather unable to participate in the amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking woman who has been leaning with both arms on the counter, with a small bundle before her, for half-an-hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman - "Now, Mr. Henry, do make haste, there's a good soul, for my two grand-children's a locked up at home, and I'm afeer'd o' the fire." The shopman slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving.—"You're in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev'nin'—an't you?" is the only notice he deigns to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. "Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry; now do serve me next, there's a good creetur; I wouldn't worry you, only it's all along o' them botherin' children." "Well what have you got here" - inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—"The old concern, I suppose—pair o' stays and a petticut. You must look up something else, old ooman; I can't lend you any thing more upon them, they're completely worn out by this time, if it's only by putting in and taking out again, three times a week."—"Oh! you are a rum 'un, you are," replies the old woman laughing extremely as in duty bound—"I wish I'd got the gift of the gab like you, see if I'd be up the spout so often then? No, no; it ain't the petticut, it's a child's frock and a beautiful silk ankecher as belongs to my husband; he gave four shillin' for it the wery same blessed day as he broke his arm."—"What do you want upon these?" inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. "What do you want upon these?"—"Eighteenpence." —"Lend you ninepence." "Oh, make it a shillin'— there's a dear! do now." "Not another farden." "Well, I suppose I must take it." The duplicate is made out; one ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his claim to be served without further delay. The choice falls upon an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose tarnished paper cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some tools:—probably to enable him to complete a job, on account of which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance and drunken stagger may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a level with the counter by any other process has employed himself in climbing up and then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to the door, and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. "What do you strike the boy for, you brute?" exclaims a slip-shod woman, with two flat-irons in a little basket. "Do you think he's your wife you willin?" "Go and hang yourself," replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the woman, which fortunately misses its object. "Go and hang yourself; and wait there till I come and cut you down."—"Cut you down," rejoins the woman, "I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond! (loud).—oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder).—where's your wife, you willin (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic, and work themselves into a tremendous passion in no time)? Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a wo-man—you a man! (very shrill); I wish I had you—I'd murder you, I would, if I died for it!" "Now be civil," retorts the man fiercely. "Be civil, you wiper!" ejaculates the woman contemptuously. "An't it shocking," she continues, turning round and appealing to an old woman who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in the attack possessing, as she does, the comfortable conviction that she's bolted in. "Ain't it shocking, ma'am? ("Dreadful!" says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to.); he's got a wife, ma'am, as takes in mangling, and is as 'dustrious and hard working a young ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our 'ous, which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten' on her sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten' her, but beaten his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!—and she, poor creetur won't swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin', because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!" Here as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a grey dressing-gown, embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—"Now I won't have none of this sort of thing on my premises," he interposes with an air of authority. "Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or I'm damned if you get four pence for a flat iron here; and, Jinkins you leave your ticket here till you're sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won't have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make you scarcer." This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and is in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, when the entrance of his wife—a wretched worn-out woman apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to the burden—light enough, God knows—of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. "Come home, dear," cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone; "Do come home, there's a good fellow, and go to bed." "Go home yourself," rejoins the furious ruffian, accompanying an epithet we cannot repeat, with a kick we will not describe. "Do come home quietly," repeats the wife, bursting into tears. "Go home yourself," retorts the husband again, enforcing his argument by the application we have before hinted at. The poor creature flies out of the shop with the impetus thus administered; and her "natural protector" follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face. The scene of which we have just attempted a slight description, is scarcely concluded, when a couple of the private boxes are occupied by persons who present so striking a contrast to each other, that we cannot resist the temptation of noticing them in our sketch as briefly as possible. In the last one which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop considerably removed from either of the gas-lights, are a young delicate girl of about twenty and an elderly female—evidently her mother from the resemblance between them—who stand at some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopmen. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker's shop, for they answer without a moment's hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of "What name shall I say?" "Your own property, of course?" "Where do you live, ma'am?" "Housekeeper or lodger?" They bargain, too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do, and the elderly female urges her daughter on in scarcely audible whispers to exert her utmost powers of persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They are a small gold chain and a "Forget me not" ring: the girl's property, for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times—prized perhaps once for the giver's sake, but parted with now without a struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example has hardened the girl; and the prospect of receiving money, coupled with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want of it; the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some and the still more galling compassion of others—appears to obliterate the consciousness of self humiliation which the bare idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but scrupulously fine, too plainly bespeaks her station in life. The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings—the worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings—the summer bonnet in winter, and the sunken face where a daub of rouge only serves as an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost happiness never to be restored; and where the practised smile is a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart—cannot be mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened in this woman's mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and burst into an agony of tears. There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but connected by some undefined and indistinct association with past days that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape. There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonnetted, flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group; then her attention; the half- intoxicated leer changed to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to extend itself even to her bosom. Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but two more stages—the hospital and the grave! How many females situated as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched manner? One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example! How many have done the same! Such are a few of the sights and scenes of a Pawnbroker's Shop. We could extend this sketch much further; but we fear the subject would present few—very few—attractions. We will, therefore, only apologise for having dwelt upon it so long. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop.' The Evening Chronicle (30 June 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop' Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (30 June 1835). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001315/18350630/023/0003</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-06-20 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XV, The Pawnbroker's Shop' (30 June 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-06-30_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXV_The_Pawnbrokers_Shop</a>. Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. Of all the numerous receptacles for misery and distress with which the streets of London unhappily abound, there are, perhaps, none which present such striking scenes of vice and poverty as the pawnbrokers' shops. The very nature and description of these places prevents their being but little known, except to the unfortunate beings whose profligacy or misfortune drives them to seek the temporary relief they offer: the subject may appear, at first sight, to be anything but an inviting one, but we venture on it nevertheless, in the hope that, as far as the limits of our present paper are concerned, it will present at all events nothing to disgust even the most fastidious reader. There are some pawnbrokers' shops of a very superior description. There are grades in pawning as in everything else; and distinctions must be observed even in poverty. The aristocratic Spanish cloak, and the plebeian calico shirt—the silver fork and the flat-iron—the muslin cravat and the Belcher neck-kerchief, would assort but ill together; so the better sort of pawnbroker calls himself a silversmith, and decorates his shop with handsome trinkets and expensive jewellery, while the more humble money-lender boldly advertises his calling, and invites observation. It is with pawnbrokers' shops of the latter class that we have to do. We have selected one for our purpose, and will endeavour to describe it. The pawnbroker's shop is situated near Drury-lane, at the corner of a court, which affords a side-entrance for the accommodation of such customers as may be desirous of avoiding the observation of the passers-by, or the chance of recognition in the public street. It is a low, dirty-looking dusty shop, the door of which stands always doubtfully, a little way open, half-inviting, half-repelling the hesitating visitor, who, if he be as yet uninitiated, examines one of the old garnet brooches in the window for a minute or two with affected eagerness, as if he contemplated making the purchase; and then looking cautiously round to ascertain that no one watches him, hastily slinks in; the door closing of itself after him to just its former width. The shop-front and the window-frames bear evident marks of having been once painted; but what the colour was originally, or at what date it was originally laid on, are, at this remote period, questions which may be asked, but cannot be answered. Tradition states that the transparency on the front door, which displays at night three red balls on a blue ground, once bore also, inscribed in graceful waves, the words "Money advanced on plate, jewels, wearing apparel, and every description of property," but a few illegible hieroglyphics are all that now remain to attest the fact. The plate and jewels would seem to have disappeared together with the announcement; for the articles of stock, which are displayed in some profusion in the window, do not include any very valuable luxuries of either kind. A few old china cups, some modern vases, adorned with paltry paintings of three Spanish cavaliers, playing three Spanish guitars, or a party of boors carousing, each boor with one leg painfully elevated in the air, by way of expressing his perfect freedom and gaiety—several sets of chess-men, two or three flutes, a few fiddles—a round-eyed portrait staring in astonishment from a very dark ground, some gaudily bound prayer-books and testaments—two rows of silver watches, quite as clumsy, and almost as large as Ferguson's first—numerous old fashioned table and tea-spoons displayed, fan-like, in half-dozens—strings of coral with great broad gilt snaps—cards of rings and brooches fastened and labelled separately like the insects in the British Museum—cheap silver penholders and snuff-boxes, with a masonic star, complete the jewellery department; while five or six beds in smeary, clouded ticks, strings of blankets and sheets, silk and cotton handkerchiefs, and wearing apparel of every description form the more useful, though even less ornamental, part of the articles exposed for sale. An extensive collection of planes, chisels, saws, and other carpenters' tools, which have been pledged, and never redeemed, form the foreground of the picture; while the large frames, full of ticketted bundles which are dimly seen through the dirty casement up stairs—the squalid neighbourhood—the adjoining houses, straggling, shrunken, and rotten, with one or two filthy, unwholesome-looking heads thrust out of every window, and old red pans and stunted plants exposed on the tottering parapets, to the manifest hazard of the heads of the passers-by—the noisy men loitering under the archway at the corner of the court, or about the gin-shop next door, and their wives patiently standing on the curb-stone, with large baskets of cheap vegetables slung round them for sale, are its immediate auxiliaries. If the outside of the pawnbroker's shop be calculated to attract the attention, or excite the interest of the speculative pedestrian, its interior cannot fail to produce the same effect in a very increased degree. The front door, which we have before noticed, opens into the common shop, which is the resort of all those customers whose habitual acquaintance with such scenes render them indifferent to the observations of their companions in poverty. The side door opens into a small passage, from which some half dozen doors (which may be secured on the inside by bolts) open into a corresponding number of little dens or closets, which face the counter. Here the more timid, or respectable portion of the crowd, shroud themselves from the notice of the remainder, and patiently wait until the gentleman behind the counter, with the curly black hair, diamond ring, and double silver watch-guard, shall feel disposed to favour them with his notice—a consummation which depends considerably on the temper of the aforesaid gentleman for the time being. At the present moment this elegantly attired individual is in the act of entering the duplicate he has just made out in a thick book, a process from which he is diverted occasionally by a conversation he is carrying on with another young man similarly employed at a little distance from him, whose allusions to "that last bottle of soda-water last night"—and "how regularly round my hat he felt himself when the young ooman gave 'em in charge," would appear to refer to the consequences of some stolen joviality of the preceding evening. The customers generally, however, seem rather unable to participate in the amusement derivable from this source, for an old sallow-looking woman who has been leaning with both arms on the counter, with a small bundle before her, for half-an-hour previously, suddenly interrupts the conversation by addressing the jewelled shopman - "Now, Mr. Henry, do make haste, there's a good soul, for my two grand-children's a locked up at home, and I'm afeer'd o' the fire." The shopman slightly raises his head, with an air of deep abstraction, and resumes his entry with as much deliberation as if he were engraving.—"You're in a hurry, Mrs. Tatham, this ev'nin'—an't you?" is the only notice he deigns to take after the lapse of five minutes or so. "Yes, I am indeed, Mr. Henry; now do serve me next, there's a good creetur; I wouldn't worry you, only it's all along o' them botherin' children." "Well what have you got here" - inquires the shopman, unpinning the bundle—"The old concern, I suppose—pair o' stays and a petticut. You must look up something else, old ooman; I can't lend you any thing more upon them, they're completely worn out by this time, if it's only by putting in and taking out again, three times a week."—"Oh! you are a rum 'un, you are," replies the old woman laughing extremely as in duty bound—"I wish I'd got the gift of the gab like you, see if I'd be up the spout so often then? No, no; it ain't the petticut, it's a child's frock and a beautiful silk ankecher as belongs to my husband; he gave four shillin' for it the wery same blessed day as he broke his arm."—"What do you want upon these?" inquires Mr. Henry, slightly glancing at the articles, which in all probability are old acquaintances. "What do you want upon these?"—"Eighteenpence." —"Lend you ninepence." "Oh, make it a shillin'— there's a dear! do now." "Not another farden." "Well, I suppose I must take it." The duplicate is made out; one ticket pinned on the parcel, the other given to the old woman; the parcel is flung carelessly down into a corner, and some other customer prefers his claim to be served without further delay. The choice falls upon an unshaven, dirty, sottish-looking fellow, whose tarnished paper cap, stuck negligently over one eye, communicates an additionally repulsive expression to his very uninviting countenance. He was enjoying a little relaxation from his sedentary pursuits a quarter of an hour ago, in kicking his wife up the court. He has come to redeem some tools:—probably to enable him to complete a job, on account of which he has already received some money, if his inflamed countenance and drunken stagger may be taken as evidence of the fact. Having waited some little time, he makes his presence known by venting his ill-humour on a ragged urchin, who, being unable to bring his face on a level with the counter by any other process has employed himself in climbing up and then hooking himself on with his elbows—an uneasy perch from which he has fallen at intervals, generally alighting on the toes of the person in his immediate vicinity. In the present case, the unfortunate little wretch has received a cuff which sends him reeling to the door, and the donor of the blow is immediately the object of general indignation. "What do you strike the boy for, you brute?" exclaims a slip-shod woman, with two flat-irons in a little basket. "Do you think he's your wife you willin?" "Go and hang yourself," replies the gentleman addressed, with a drunken look of savage stupidity, aiming at the same time a blow at the woman, which fortunately misses its object. "Go and hang yourself; and wait there till I come and cut you down."—"Cut you down," rejoins the woman, "I wish I had the cutting of you up, you wagabond! (loud).—oh! you precious wagabond! (rather louder).—where's your wife, you willin (louder still; women of this class are always sympathetic, and work themselves into a tremendous passion in no time)? Your poor dear wife as you uses worser nor a dog—strike a wo-man—you a man! (very shrill); I wish I had you—I'd murder you, I would, if I died for it!" "Now be civil," retorts the man fiercely. "Be civil, you wiper!" ejaculates the woman contemptuously. "An't it shocking," she continues, turning round and appealing to an old woman who is peeping out of one of the little closets we have before described, and who has not the slightest objection to join in the attack possessing, as she does, the comfortable conviction that she's bolted in. "Ain't it shocking, ma'am? ("Dreadful!" says the old woman in a parenthesis, not exactly knowing what the question refers to.); he's got a wife, ma'am, as takes in mangling, and is as 'dustrious and hard working a young ooman as can be, (very fast) as lives in the back parlour of our 'ous, which my husband and me lives in the front one (with great rapidity)—and we hears him a beaten' on her sometimes when he comes home drunk, the whole night through, and not only a beaten' her, but beaten his own child too, to make her more miserable—ugh, you beast!—and she, poor creetur won't swear the peace agin him, nor do nothin', because she likes the wretch arter all—worse luck!" Here as the woman has completely run herself out of breath, the pawnbroker himself, who has just appeared behind the counter in a grey dressing-gown, embraces the favourable opportunity of putting in a word:—"Now I won't have none of this sort of thing on my premises," he interposes with an air of authority. "Mrs. Mackin, keep yourself to yourself, or I'm damned if you get four pence for a flat iron here; and, Jinkins you leave your ticket here till you're sober, and send your wife for them two planes, for I won't have you in my shop at no price; so make yourself scarce, before I make you scarcer." This eloquent address produces anything but the effect desired; the women rail in concert; the man hits about him in all directions, and is in the act of establishing an indisputable claim to gratuitous lodgings for the night, when the entrance of his wife—a wretched worn-out woman apparently in the last stage of consumption, whose face bears evident marks of recent ill-usage, and whose strength seems hardly equal to the burden—light enough, God knows—of the thin, sickly child she carries in her arms, turns his cowardly rage in a safer direction. "Come home, dear," cries the miserable creature, in an imploring tone; "Do come home, there's a good fellow, and go to bed." "Go home yourself," rejoins the furious ruffian, accompanying an epithet we cannot repeat, with a kick we will not describe. "Do come home quietly," repeats the wife, bursting into tears. "Go home yourself," retorts the husband again, enforcing his argument by the application we have before hinted at. The poor creature flies out of the shop with the impetus thus administered; and her "natural protector" follows her up the court, alternately venting his rage in accelerating her progress, and in knocking the little scanty blue bonnet of the unfortunate child over its still more scanty and faded-looking face. The scene of which we have just attempted a slight description, is scarcely concluded, when a couple of the private boxes are occupied by persons who present so striking a contrast to each other, that we cannot resist the temptation of noticing them in our sketch as briefly as possible. In the last one which is situated in the darkest and most obscure corner of the shop considerably removed from either of the gas-lights, are a young delicate girl of about twenty and an elderly female—evidently her mother from the resemblance between them—who stand at some distance back, as if to avoid the observation even of the shopmen. It is not their first visit to a pawnbroker's shop, for they answer without a moment's hesitation the usual questions, put in a rather respectful manner, and in a much lower tone than usual, of "What name shall I say?" "Your own property, of course?" "Where do you live, ma'am?" "Housekeeper or lodger?" They bargain, too, for a higher loan than the shopman is at first inclined to offer, which a perfect stranger would be little disposed to do, and the elderly female urges her daughter on in scarcely audible whispers to exert her utmost powers of persuasion to obtain an advance of the sum, and expatiate on the value of the articles they have brought to raise a present supply upon. They are a small gold chain and a "Forget me not" ring: the girl's property, for they are both too small for the mother; given her in better times—prized perhaps once for the giver's sake, but parted with now without a struggle; for want has hardened the mother, and her example has hardened the girl; and the prospect of receiving money, coupled with a recollection of the misery they have both endured from the want of it; the coldness of old friends—the stern refusal of some and the still more galling compassion of others—appears to  obliterate the consciousness of self humiliation which the bare idea of their present situation would once have aroused. In the next is a young female, whose attire, miserably poor but extremely gaudy, wretchedly cold but scrupulously fine, too plainly bespeaks her station in life. The rich satin gown with its faded trimmings—the worn-out thin shoes, and pink silk stockings—the summer bonnet in winter, and the sunken face where a daub of rouge only serves as an index to the ravages of squandered health never to be regained, and lost happiness never to be restored; and where the practised smile is a wretched mockery of the misery of the heart—cannot be mistaken. There is something in the glimpse she has just caught of her young neighbour, and in the sight of the little trinkets she has offered in pawn, that seems to have awakened in this woman's mind some slumbering recollection, and to have changed for an instant her whole demeanour. Her first hasty impulse was to bend forward as if to scan more minutely the appearance of her half-concealed companions; her next, on seeing them involuntarily shrink from her, to retreat to the back of the box, cover her face with her hands, and burst into an agony of tears. There are strange chords in the human heart, which will lie dormant through years of depravity and wickedness, but which will vibrate at last to some slight circumstance apparently trivial in itself, but connected by some undefined and indistinct association with past days that can never be recalled, and with bitter recollections from which the most degraded creature in existence cannot escape. There has been another spectator, in the person of a woman in the common shop; the lowest of the low; dirty, unbonnetted, flaunting, and slovenly. Her curiosity was at first attracted by the little she could see of the group; then her attention; the half- intoxicated leer changed to an expression of something like interest, and a feeling similar to that we have described, appeared for a moment, and only a moment, to extend itself even to her bosom. Who shall say how soon these women may change places? The last has but two more stages—the hospital and the grave! How many females situated as her two companions are, and as she may have been once, have terminated the same wretched course, in the same wretched manner? One is already tracing her footsteps with frightful rapidity. How soon may the other follow her example! How many have done the same! Such are a few of the sights and scenes of a Pawnbroker's Shop. We could extend this sketch much further; but we fear the subject would present few—very few—attractions. We will, therefore, only apologise for having dwelt upon it so long. https://www.dickenssearch.com/files/original/5/Sketches_of_London_No._XVII_The_Streets_-_Morning/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London,_No._XVII_The_Streets_Morning.pdf 49963c3258f11f0765b911874fe1b7f1 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Short Fiction Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context short-stories Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lydia Craig Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. This collection (still in development) unites various short stories that Dickens wrote throughout his career for various publications, including newspapers and periodicals, and for inclusion in short story collections. Between 1833, when he tentatively submitted “A Dinner at Poplar Walk” for publication in The Monthly Magazine, and his death in 1870, Dickens as ‘BOZ,’ briefly, as ‘TIBBS,’ and as “Charles Dickens” wrote dozens of short stories and ‘sketches,’ which often moved easily between journalism and story. It was as Boz, the late Georgian literary persona, that he first endeared himself to the British reading public in the pages of such newspapers and periodicals as The Evening Chronicle, Bell’s Life in London, and Bentley's Miscellany with a unique blend of comedy and pathos. By turns scathing of observed social and personal injustices, and appreciative of London’s colourful, vibrant culture and the oddities of human nature, Boz followed in the literary footsteps of other recent metropolitan commentators like Charles Lamb (‘ELIA’), Leigh Hunt, Theodore Hook, Robert Surtees, Thomas Hood, and John Poole, and eighteenth-century Picaresque novelists, Tobias Smollett and Henry Fielding. Soon, Dickens established his own unique voice. Prior to and following the ascension of the young Queen Victoria in 1837, Boz became a prescient spectator of both the rising empire’s rapidly developing culture in public spaces and of the domestic dramas enacted in British homes. Global fame arrived with the serial publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), marking Dickens’s shift to writing novels. In tone, this rambling comedic travelogue owed much to Boz’s voice and incidentally featured several tales unrelated to the main narrative. Dickens would sporadically publish the Mudfog stories in 1836 and 1837, enlarging on them in Sketches by Boz, a collection of many of the sketches and stories first published by John Macrone in two volumes in 1836 and 1837 and illustrated by George Cruikshank. According to Robert L. Patten, ‘When Dickens gathered up previously published writing, anonymous and pseudonymous, for republication, he identified authorship with a particular subset of his journalistic pieces, the ‘sketches’ rather than the tales or portraits of characters, and with his pseudonym. Hence, after mooting several other titles, Dickens settled on Sketches by Boz’ (44). Sketches of Young Gentlemen (1838), a joking response to Rev. Edward Caswell, or “QUIZ’s” recent effort Sketches of Young Ladies (1838), and Sketches of Couples (1840) were published by Chapman and Hall and illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne, better known as ‘PHIZ’. After this point, Dickens’s short stories were published in his periodicals Household Words and All the Year Round, though after 1837 he never published them with any regularity, preferring instead to focus on writing and serialising novels. Occasionally, he contributed several chapters to a jointly authored short story, collection, or series; Christmas numbers of his periodicals provided the opportunity to feature multiple famous writers uniting to weave a Yule-tide yarn, such as The Haunted House (1859). Notably, his collaboration with Wilkie Collins resulted in such works as The Perils of Certain English Prisoners (1857) and No Thoroughfare (1867). Towards the end of his life, Dickens began to publish short stories again in American publications such as The New York Ledger, The Atlantic Monthly, and Our Young Folks. Until now, first printings of Dickens’s earliest short stories published between 1833 and 1836 have been difficult to find for those unable to visit the periodicals and newspaper holdings at eminent institutions such as The British Library. Similarly, the last ones written by Dickens have remained understudied due in part to their obscurity. Twentieth-century editions of the Sketches are generally based on the text of Chapman and Hall’s later 1839 single volume edition, which relies on the reissue serialised between 1837 and 1839, or the 1868 Charles Dickens Edition, which is based on the 1850 cheap (and further revised) edition. Other anthologies, for instance Selected Short Fiction (Penguin, 2005), edited by Deborah A. Thomas, choose excerpts from Dickens’s entire oeuvre in the short fiction genre. Several scholars have explored the drafting, publication, and impact of the early sketches and short stories, with notable studies including Dickens and the Short Story. (University of Philadelphia Press, 1982) by Deborah A. Thomas and Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’: The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author (Cambridge, 2012) by Patten.1 To date, the most comprehensive overview of the sketches is provided by The Oxford Edition of Charles Dickens’s Sketches by Boz (2021) edited by Paul Schlicke with David Hewitt. Others include Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches as Originally Composed and Published 1833–1836 (2012), edited by Robert C. Hanna, and Sketches by Boz and Other Early Papers (1994), edited by Michael Slater. Because Dickens made many alterations, whether significant or incidental, between the first printing of a sketch and successive editions, these changes open up a window into his editorial process and developing intentions for the ‘Boz’ legacy. Now, with this Dickens Search collection, these emendations can be studied with greater ease than ever before. Our transcription field contains text Dickens is believed to have solely authored, though our pdfs of the short story collaborations will be provided in their entirety to facilitate easier engagement and comprehension of how his narrative might interact with those constructed by other writers. Ngram search and other text analysis tools will be applied to Dickens’s words only, to avoid skewing the results. While building this collection, we have consulted, and transcribed scans found on databases such as British Newspaper Archive (BNA), digital archives, and such open-access sites as Hathi Trust, Internet Archive, and Google Books; all items are linked to their original location on the internet. Please contact us with any errors, corrections, and suggestions, or to mention other short stories by Dickens that might have been overlooked. 1. See Dominic Rainsford. ‘“Luller-li-e-te”! Language, Personhood, and Sympathy in Sketches by Boz.’ In Some Keywords in Dickens. Edited by Michael Hollington, Francesca Orestano, and Nathalie Vanfasse. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021, pp. 117-130; William F. Long. ‘“Our Space is Limited”: Fitting Sketches by Boz into the Morning Chronicle”. Dickens Quarterly 4 (December 2020): pp. 325-348; William F. Long. 'Dickens before Sketches by Boz: Earliest Reactions to his Earliest Works'. Dickensian (2018), 114.505, pp.170-176; Christina Jen. '"Drop the Curtain": Astonishment and the Anxieties of Authorship in Charles Dickens's Sketches by Boz. Dickens Studies Annual 49.2 (2018): pp. 249-278; Dianne F. Sadoff. ‘Boz and Beyond: “Oliver Twist” and the Dickens Legacy’. Dickens Studies Annual 45 (2014): pp. 23-44; Dickens's Uncollected Magazine and Newspaper Sketches, as Originally Composed and Published, 1833–1836, No. 46. Ed. Robert C. Hanna (2012): New York, AMS Press; Danielle Coriale. ‘Sketches by Boz, “So Frail a Machine”. SEL: Studies in English Literature 48.4 (2008): pp. 801-812; Paul Schlicke. ‘“Risen Like a Rocket”: The Impact of Sketches by Boz’. Dickens Quarterly 22.1 (2005): pp. 3-18; Ellen Miller Casey. ‘“Boz has got the Town by the ear”: Dickens and the “Athenæum Critics”’. Dickens Studies Annual 33 (2003): pp. 159-190; Richard Maxwell. ‘Dickens, the Two “Chronicles”, and the Publication of “Sketches by Boz”’. Dickens Studies Annual 9 (1981): pp. 21–32; Angus Easson. “Who is Boz? Dickens and His Sketches”. The Dickensian 18.1.405 (Spring 1985): pp. 13-22; Julian W. Breslow. 'The Narrator in Sketches by Boz.' ELH 44.1 (1977): pp. 127–49. Short Story Publication Type E.g. newspaper/serial Newspaper Publication The title of the newspaper/serial (if applicable) The Evening Chronicle Pseudonym The name under which the item was published BOZ Ngram Date Hidden from users and search. All items in a collection need to have the same data in the same format in order to show up in Ngram (either YYYY, YYYYMMDD, or YYYYMMDD). No combinations will work. For journalism, letters and poetry, if there is no month or day, default to the first of the month or January. So a poem with a date of March 1843 would be 18430301. A poem published in 1856 with no month or date information would be 18560101. 18350721 Ngram Text Hidden from users and search. Copy and paste from the Scripto transcription. Then check and uncheck HTML to strip out all formatting. Finally, search and remove any   (which is the HTML for spaces). This will prevent the Ngram picking up on irrelevant HTML. The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sun-rise on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, make them well acquainted with the scene. There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and the quiet closely shut buildings which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. The last drunken man who shall find his way home before sunlight has just staggered heavily along, occasionally roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth: the drunken, the dissipated, and the wretched have disappeared: the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day; and the stillness of death is over the streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre light of daybreak. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted; the night houses are closed; the chosen promenades of profligate misery are empty. An occasional policeman may be seen at the street corners, listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him; and now and then a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road, and descends his own area with as much caution and slyness—bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones —as if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantries of the preceding night escaping public observation. A partially opened bedroom-window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of the rush-light through the window-blind denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun, and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume their bustle and animation. Market carts roll slowly along, the sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit baskets, forgets in happy oblivion his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London. Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers and hackney coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses, and little deal tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary stations. Numbers of men and women (principally the latter) carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden; and following each other in rapid succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge. Here and there a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or four school-boys on a stolen bathing expedition, rattle merrily over the pavement; their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful Legislature from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step until the house maid may happen to awake. Covent-garden Market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger’s cart with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage leaves, broken haybands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market and the numerous noises are almost as multifarious. Men shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the excellence of their pastry, donkeys braying, and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen, who are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time. Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest. The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded "Missises ringing" for half an hour previously, is warned by master (whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the landing-place for that purpose) that it’s half-past six, whereupon she awakes all of a sudden with well feigned astonishment, and goes down stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would extend itself to coals and kitchen ranges; when the fire is lit she opens the street-door to take in the milk when, by the most singular coincidence in the world, she discovers that the servant next door has just taken in her milk too, and that Mr. Todd’s young man over the way is by an equally extraordinary chance taking down his master’s shutters. The inevitable consequence is, that she just steps milk-jug in hand as far as next door just to say "good morning" to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s young man just steps over the way just to say "good morning" to both of ’em; and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd’s young man is almost as good-looking and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes very interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark’s missis, who always will be a followin’ her about, didn’t give an angry tap at her bed-room window, on which Mr. Todd’s young man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster than he came from it; and the two girls run back to their respective places, and shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking their heads out of the front parlour-window a minute afterwards, however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse of Mr. Todd’s young man, who, being fond of mails, but more fond of females, takes a short look at the coach and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the passengers who are going out by the early coach stare with astonishment at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach, who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that odd feeling produced by travelling, which makes the events of yesterday morning seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and induces people to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since they have left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches which are just going out are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, God knows why, that it's quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least sixpenn'orth of oranges, a pen-knife, a pocket-book, a last year’s annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures. Half-an-hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse the diurnal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed how hot it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the Wonder, or the Tally-Ho, or the Nimrod, or some other fast coach, till it's out of sight, when he re-enters the shop envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red brick house "down in the country," where he went to school: the miseries of thin milk and water and thick bread and scrapings fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection of the green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into, and other school-boy associations. Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the coach-offices, or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand. polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles—the former wondering how people can prefer "them wild-beast cariwans of omnibuses to a riglar cab with a fast trotter," and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of "them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable ackney cotche with a pair of orses as von’t run away with no vun;"—a consolation unquestionably founded in fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all, "except," as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, "except one, and he run back’ards!" The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The bakers’ shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls—an operation which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs; for the early clerk population of Somers and Camdon Towns, Islington and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the City, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane and the inns of court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the counting-house, knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen them every morning (Sunday excepted) during the last twenty years; but speaking to no one. If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried salutation, and keep walking on, either by his side or in front of him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think that it is not included in their salary, and they have no right to do it. Small office lads in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in pairs with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trowsers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks’ doors; but a consciousness of their own importance, and the receipt of seven shillings a week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight comes to their aid, and they accordingly put their hats a little more on one side, and look under the bonnets of all the milliners’ and stay-makers’ apprentices they meet. Poor girls! The hardest worked, the worst paid; and too often the worst used, class of the community. Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged: the shopmen in their white neck-kerchiefs and spruce coats, look as if they couldn’t clean a window if their lives depended on it: the carts have disappeared from Covent Garden: the waggoners have returned and the costermongers repaired to their ordinary "beats" in the suburbs: clerks are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses are conveying their masters to the same destination. The streets are thronged with a vast concourse of people - gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and industrious; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity of noon. TEI File Link to TEI file <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/teibp/dist/content/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning.xml" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning.' The Evening Chronicle (21 July 1835).</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning' Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dickens, Charles Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived The British Newspaper Archive, <a href="https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/BL/0001315/18350721/013/0001</a>. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1835-07-21 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource The British Newspaper Archive. Some rights reserved. This work permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Type The nature or genre of the resource Short Story Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning Bibliographic Citation A bibliographic reference for the resource. Recommended practice is to include sufficient bibliographic detail to identify the resource as unambiguously as possible. Dickens, Charles. 'Sketches of London, No. XVII, The Streets - Morning' (21 July 1835). Dickens Search. Eds. Emily Middleton and Lydia Craig. Accessed [date]. <a href="https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning">https://dickenssearch.com/short-stories/1835-07-21_The_Evening_Chronicle_Sketches_of_London_NoXVII_The_Streets_Morning</a>. Description An account of the resource Published in The Evening Chronicle (21 July 1835). Scripto Transcription A written representation of a document. The appearance presented by the streets of London an hour before sun-rise on a summer’s morning, is most striking even to the few whose unfortunate pursuits of pleasure, or scarcely less unfortunate pursuits of business, make them well acquainted with the scene.  There is an air of cold, solitary desolation about the noiseless streets we are accustomed to see thronged at other times by a busy, eager crowd, and the quiet closely shut buildings which throughout the day are swarming with life and bustle, that is very impressive. The last drunken man who shall find his way home before sunlight has just staggered heavily along, occasionally roaring out the burden of the drinking song of the previous night: the last houseless vagrant whom penury and police have left in the streets, has coiled up his chilly limbs in some paved corner, to dream of food and warmth: the drunken, the dissipated, and the wretched have disappeared: the more sober and orderly part of the population have not yet awakened to the labours of the day; and the stillness of death is over the streets; its very hue seems to be imparted to them, cold and lifeless as they look in the grey, sombre light of daybreak. The coach-stands in the larger thoroughfares are deserted; the night houses are closed; the chosen promenades of profligate misery are empty. An occasional policeman may be seen at the street corners, listlessly gazing on the deserted prospect before him; and now and then a rakish-looking cat runs stealthily across the road, and descends his own area with as much caution and slyness—bounding first on the water-butt, then on the dust-hole, and then alighting on the flag-stones —as if he were conscious that his character depended on his gallantries of the preceding night escaping public observation. A partially opened bedroom-window here and there bespeaks the heat of the weather and the uneasy slumbers of its occupant; and the dim scanty flicker of the rush-light through the window-blind denotes the chamber of watching or sickness. With these few exceptions, the streets present no signs of life, nor the houses of habitation. An hour wears away; the spires of the churches and roofs of the principal buildings are faintly tinged with the light of the rising sun, and the streets, by almost imperceptible degrees, begin to resume their bustle and animation. Market carts roll slowly along, the sleepy waggoner impatiently urging on his tired horses, or vainly endeavouring to awaken the boy, who, luxuriously stretched on the top of the fruit baskets, forgets in happy oblivion his long-cherished curiosity to behold the wonders of London. Rough, sleepy-looking animals of strange appearance, something between ostlers and hackney coachmen, begin to take down the shutters of early public-houses, and little deal tables, with the ordinary preparations for a street breakfast, make their appearance at the customary stations.  Numbers of men and women (principally the latter) carrying upon their heads heavy baskets of fruit, toil down the park side of Piccadilly, on their way to Covent-garden; and following each other in rapid succession, form a long straggling line from thence to the turn of the road at Knightsbridge. Here and there a bricklayer’s labourer, with the day’s dinner tied up in a handkerchief, walks briskly to his work, and occasionally a little knot of three or four school-boys on a stolen bathing expedition, rattle merrily over the pavement; their boisterous mirth contrasting forcibly with the demeanour of the little sweep, who, having knocked and rung till his arm aches, and being interdicted by a merciful Legislature from endangering his lungs by calling out, sits patiently down on the door-step until the house maid may happen to awake. Covent-garden Market, and the avenues leading to it, are thronged with carts of all sorts, sizes, and descriptions, from the heavy lumbering waggon with its four stout horses, to the jingling costermonger’s cart with its consumptive donkey. The pavement is already strewed with decayed cabbage leaves, broken haybands, and all the indescribable litter of a vegetable market and the numerous noises are almost as multifarious. Men shouting, carts backing, horses neighing, boys fighting, basket-women talking, piemen expatiating on the excellence of their pastry, donkeys braying, and a hundred other sounds form a compound discordant enough to a Londoner’s ears, and remarkably disagreeable to those of country gentlemen, who are sleeping at the Hummums for the first time. Another hour passes away, and the day begins in good earnest. The servant of all work, who, under the plea of sleeping very soundly, has utterly disregarded "Missises ringing" for half an hour previously, is warned by master (whom Missis has sent up in his drapery to the landing-place for that purpose) that it’s half-past six, whereupon she awakes all of a sudden with well feigned astonishment, and goes down stairs very sulkily, wishing, while she strikes a light, that the principle of spontaneous combustion would extend itself to coals and kitchen ranges; when the fire is lit she opens the street-door to take in the milk when, by the most singular coincidence in the world, she discovers that the servant next door has just taken in her milk too, and that Mr. Todd’s young man over the way is by an equally extraordinary chance taking down his master’s shutters. The inevitable consequence is, that she just steps milk-jug in hand as far as next door just to say "good morning" to Betsy Clark, and that Mr. Todd’s young man just steps over the way just to say "good morning" to both of ’em; and as the aforesaid Mr. Todd’s young man is almost as good-looking and fascinating as the baker himself, the conversation quickly becomes very interesting, and probably would become more so, if Betsy Clark’s missis, who always will be a followin’ her about, didn’t give an angry tap at her bed-room window, on which Mr. Todd’s young man tries to whistle coolly, as he goes back to his shop much faster than he came from it; and the two girls run back to their respective places, and shut their street-doors with surprising softness, each of them poking their heads out of the front parlour-window a minute afterwards, however, ostensibly with the view of looking at the mail which just then passes by, but really for the purpose of catching another glimpse of Mr. Todd’s young man, who, being fond of mails, but more fond of females, takes a short look at the coach and a long look at the girls, much to the satisfaction of all parties concerned. The mail itself goes on to the coach-office in due course, and the passengers who are going out by the early coach stare with astonishment at the passengers who are coming in by the early coach, who look blue and dismal, and are evidently under the influence of that odd feeling produced by travelling, which makes the events of yesterday morning seem as if they had happened at least six months ago, and induces people to wonder with considerable gravity whether the friends and relations they took leave of a fortnight before, have altered much since they have left them. The coach-office is all alive, and the coaches which are just going out are surrounded by the usual crowd of Jews and nondescripts, who seem to consider, God knows why, that it's quite impossible any man can mount a coach without requiring at least sixpenn'orth of oranges, a pen-knife, a pocket-book, a last year’s annual, a pencil-case, a piece of sponge, and a small series of caricatures. Half-an-hour more, and the sun darts his bright rays cheerfully down the still half-empty streets, and shines with sufficient force to rouse the diurnal laziness of the apprentice, who pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed how hot it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the Wonder, or the Tally-Ho, or the Nimrod, or some other fast coach, till it's out of sight, when he re-enters the shop envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red brick house "down in the country," where he went to school: the miseries of thin milk and water and thick bread and scrapings fading into nothing before the pleasant recollection of the green field the boys used to play in, and the green pond he was caned for presuming to fall into, and other school-boy associations. Cabs, with trunks and band-boxes between the drivers’ legs and outside the apron, rattle briskly up and down the streets on their way to the coach-offices, or steam-packet wharfs; and the cab-drivers and hackney-coachmen who are on the stand. polish up the ornamental part of their dingy vehicles—the former wondering how people can prefer "them wild-beast cariwans of omnibuses to a riglar cab with a fast trotter," and the latter admiring how people can trust their necks into one of "them crazy cabs, when they can have a ’spectable ackney cotche with a pair of orses as von’t run away with no vun;"—a consolation unquestionably founded in fact, seeing that a hackney-coach horse never was known to run at all, "except," as the smart cabman in front of the rank observes, "except one, and he run back’ards!" The shops are now completely opened, and apprentices and shopmen are busily engaged in cleaning and decking the windows for the day. The bakers’ shops in town are filled with servants and children waiting for the drawing of the first batch of rolls—an operation which was performed a full hour ago in the suburbs; for the early clerk population of Somers and Camdon Towns, Islington and Pentonville, are fast pouring into the City, or directing their steps towards Chancery-lane and the inns of court. Middle-aged men, whose salaries have by no means increased in the same proportion as their families, plod steadily along, apparently with no object in view but the counting-house, knowing by sight almost everybody they meet or overtake, for they have seen them every morning (Sunday excepted) during the last twenty years; but speaking to no one. If they do happen to overtake a personal acquaintance, they just exchange a hurried salutation, and keep walking on, either by his side or in front of him, as his rate of walking may chance to be. As to stopping to shake hands, or to take the friend’s arm, they seem to think that it is not included in their salary, and they have no right to do it. Small office lads in large hats, who are made men before they are boys, hurry along in pairs with their first coat carefully brushed, and the white trowsers of last Sunday plentifully besmeared with dust and ink. It evidently requires a considerable mental struggle to avoid investing part of the day’s dinner-money in the purchase of the stale tarts so temptingly exposed in dusty tins at the pastry-cooks’ doors; but a consciousness of their own importance, and the receipt of seven shillings a week, with the prospect of an early rise to eight comes to their aid, and they accordingly put their hats a little more on one side, and look under the bonnets of all the milliners’ and stay-makers’ apprentices they meet. Poor girls! The hardest worked, the worst paid; and too often the worst used, class of the community. Eleven o’clock, and a new set of people fill the streets. The goods in the shop-windows are invitingly arranged: the shopmen in their white neck-kerchiefs and spruce coats, look as if they couldn’t clean a window if their lives depended on it: the carts have disappeared from Covent Garden: the waggoners have returned and the costermongers repaired to their ordinary "beats" in the suburbs: clerks are at their offices, and gigs, cabs, omnibuses, and saddle-horses are conveying their masters to the same destination. The streets are thronged with a vast concourse of people - gay and shabby, rich and poor, idle and industrious; and we come to the heat, bustle, and activity of noon.