friends. And to the right there? Me sir and the Murphy fam’ly,
numbering five blessed souls. And what’s this, coiling, now, about
my foot? Another Irish me, pitifully in want of shaving, whom I
have awakened from sleep – and across my other foot lies his wife –
and by the shoes of Inspector Field lie their three eldest – and
their three youngest are at present squeezed between the open door
and the wall. And why is there no one on that little mat before
the sullen fire? Because O’Donovan, with his wife and daughter, is
not come in from selling Lucifers! Nor on the bit of sacking in
the nearest corner? Bad luck! Because that Irish family is late
to-night, a-cadging in the streets!
They are all awake now, the children excepted, and most of them sit
up, to stare. Wheresoever Mr. Rogers turns the flaming eye, there
is a spectral figure rising, unshrouded, from a grave of rags. Who
is the landlord here? – I am, Mr. Field! says a bundle of ribs and
parchment against the wall, scratching itself. – Will you spend
this money fairly, in the morning, to buy coffee for ’em all? –
Yes, sir, I will! – O he’ll do it, sir, he’ll do it fair. He’s
honest! cry the spectres. And with thanks and Good Night sink into
their graves again.
Thus, we make our New Oxford Streets, and our other new streets,
never heeding, never asking, where the wretches whom we clear out,
crowd. With such scenes at our doors, with all the plagues of
Egypt tied up with bits of cobweb in kennels so near our homes, we
timorously make our Nuisance Bills and Boards of Health,
nonentities, and think to keep away the Wolves of Crime and Filth,
by our electioneering ducking to little vestrymen and our
gentlemanly handling of Red Tape!
Intelligence of the coffee-money has got abroad. The yard is full,
and Rogers of the flaming eye is beleaguered with entreaties to
show other Lodging Houses. Mine next! Mine! Mine! Rogers,
military, obdurate, stiff-necked, immovable, replies not, but leads
away; all falling back before him. Inspector Field follows.
Detective Sergeant, with his barrier of arm across the little
passage, deliberately waits to close the procession. He sees
behind him, without any effort, and exceedingly disturbs one
individual far in the rear by coolly calling out, ‘It won’t do, Mr.
Michael! Don’t try it!’
After council holden in the street, we enter other lodging-houses,
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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces
public-houses, many lairs and holes; all noisome and offensive;
none so filthy and so crowded as where Irish are. In one, The
Ethiopian party are expected home presently – were in Oxford Street
when last heard of – shall be fetched, for our delight, within ten
minutes. In another, one of the two or three Professors who drew
Napoleon Buonaparte and a couple of mackerel, on the pavement and
then let the work of art out to a speculator, is refreshing after
his labours. In another, the vested interest of the profitable
nuisance has been in one family for a hundred years, and the
landlord drives in comfortably from the country to his snug little
stew in town. In all, Inspector Field is received with warmth.
Coiners and smashers droop before him; pickpockets defer to him;
the gentle sex (not very gentle here) smile upon him. Half-drunken
hags check themselves in the midst of pots of beer, or pints of
gin, to drink to Mr. Field, and pressingly to ask the honour of his
finishing the draught. One beldame in rusty black has such
admiration for him, that she runs a whole street’s length to shake
him by the hand; tumbling into a heap of mud by the way, and still
pressing her attentions when her very form has ceased to be
distinguishable through it. Before the power of the law, the power
of superior sense – for common thieves are fools beside these men –
and the power of a perfect mastery of their character, the garrison
of Rats’ Castle and the adjacent Fortresses make but a skulking
show indeed when reviewed by Inspector Field.
Saint Giles’s clock says it will be midnight in half-an-hour, and