[148] Joseph Hume (1777-1855) Scottish doctor and politician. Elected for a rotten borough in 1812, as a Tory, he was a friend of the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, and of the Radical Francis Place. He was instrumental in abolishing the Combinations Acts (against Trades Unions), and also against flogging as a military punishment and ‘pressing’ men into the Navy. A philanthropic man, he helped found schools for the working classes, and savings banks.
[149] Commencement of Book V. [Reynolds’s note.]
[150]The French terms for the various steps and features of the ballet-dance are—jetés, balances, rondes de jambes, fouettes, cabrioles, pirouettes sur le coude-pied, sauts de basques, pas de bourrés, and entre-chats à quatre, à six and à huit. [Reynolds’s note.]
[151] Maria Taglioni (1804-1884), ballet dancer, inventor of dancing on ‘points;’ Fanny Elssler (Franziska Elßler) (1810-1884). The ballonné style was slow and lyrical, the tacqueté fast, vivacious, and jerky.
[152] Francis Hastings Medhurst was convicted on 13 April 1839 of the manslaughter of Joseph Alsop, his fellow pupil at the Rev. Sturmer’s academy in Hayes, Middlesex. William Lees, a barber, was convicted on 25 November 1839 for the murder of Elizabeth Lees, and was executed the same year. Lees was clearly suffering from a form of mental illness, and though guilty should never have been hanged under the law as it stood; Medhurst killed Alsop for no better reason than that Alsop had broken the glass in his watch, but received a lenient sentence because, as the transcript of the trial states, “Several highly respectable witnesses deposed to the prisoner’s good character.”
[153] The reference is to the Catechism in the 1660 Book of Common Prayer.
[154] The Catechism in the Book of Common Prayer begins: “What is your name?” and the answer is given in the form, “N. or M.” This stands supposedly for “Nicholas or Mary,” as being the commonest boy’s and girl’s name of the time; but the real reason is a mystery.
[155] Thomas Kingsford’s establishment at Barton Mill, Canterbury.
[156] [Reynolds’s note:] The Dietary Table of Clerkenwell New Prison, already quoted at page 529, is as follows:—
[157] It is too frequently the habit to throw the blame of the diabolical nature of some of the clauses of the New Poor Law upon the masters of workhouses; whereas the whole vituperation should be levelled against the guardians who issue the dietary-tables, from the conditions of which the masters dare not deviate. We have no doubt that there are many masters of workhouses who are humane and kind-hearted men. Indeed, having inspected several of those establishments for the purpose of collecting information to aid us in the episode to which this note is appended, we have been enabled to ascertain that such is really the fact. Amongst others, we must signalize the Edmonton and Tottenham Union House, the master of which is Mr. Barraclough. This gentleman is a man of a most benevolent heart, and exerts himself in every way to ameliorate the condition of those entrusted to his charge. The guardians of that particular Union are, moreover, worthy, liberal-minded and considerate men, who sanction and encourage Mr. Barraclough in his humane endeavours to make the inmates of the workhouse as little sensible of their degraded condition as possible. Would that all boards of guardians merited the same encomium! [Reynolds’s note.]
[158] In 1841, Reynolds and his family lived in Suffolk Place, on the corner of Cambridge Heath Road and Bethnal Green Road.
[159] Reynolds is being disingenuous. Holywell Street ran north of and parallel to Strand, coming off of St. Clement Danes church. It had the reputation for pornographic and seditious books: one of the latter kind being Reynolds’s own first work, the grandiosely claiming Errors of the Christian Religion Exposed.
[160] During 1841, the Enon Chapel was regularly booked for meetings of the London United Temperance Association. This body published a weekly journal, The Teetotaler, whose editor was none other than G. W. M. Reynolds.
[161] The products of ordinary combustion are sufficiently poisonous. The gases produced by the decomposition of the dead are partially soluble in water; and a fatty pellicle is instantly formed in large quantities. The wood, saturated with these dissolved gases, and used as fuel (a frequent occurrence in poor neighbourhoods, and in the vicinity of metropolitan graveyards), must diffuse, in addition to the exhalations constantly given off from bodies in vaults, and on the earth’s surface, vast volumes of gaseous poison. Hence many of those maladies whose source, symptoms, and principle defy medical experience either to explain or cure. [Reynolds’s note.]
[162] In case the reader should doubt the accuracy of any of the statements relative to the employment of the youth of both sexes in the English coal-mines, which he may find in this chapter, we beg to refer him to the “Report and Appendix to the Report, of the Children’s Employment Commission, presented to Both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, in 1842.” [Reynolds’s note.]
[163] “Explosions of carbonated hydrogen gas, which is usually called by the miners ‘sulphur,’ sometimes prove very destructive, not only by scorching to death, but by the suffocation of foul air after the explosion is over, and also by the violence by which persons are driven before it, or are smothered by the ruins thrown down upon them.”—Appendix to First Report. [Reynolds’s note.]
[164] “Amongst the children and young persons I remarked that some of the muscles were developed to a degree amounting to a deformity; for example, the muscles of the back and loins stood from the body, and appeared almost like a rope passing under the skin.”—Report. [Reynolds’s note.]
[165] Skilligalee: from the Irish, scilligeálaí, a waster of time in idle talk, a coarse or unpolished talker, a habitual liar.
[166] See Report, page 43, section 194. [Reynolds’s note.]
[167] Secured the money. [Reynolds’s note.]
[168] Informer—spy. [Reynolds’s note.]
[169] In prison. [Reynolds’s note.]
[170] St. Giles’s. [Reynolds’s note.]
[171] Coal-mine. [Reynolds’s note.]
[172] Rum-punch. [Reynolds’s note.]
[173] Wife. [Reynolds’s note.]
[174] Take something to drink. [Reynolds’s note.]
[175] Beggar with Matches. [Reynolds’s note.]
[176] Soldiers. [Reynolds’s note.]
[177] Treasury. [Reynolds’s note.]
[178] Smoking a pipe. [Reynolds’s note.]
[179] Drinking mug. [Reynolds’s note.]
[180] Drinking. [Reynolds’s note.]
[181] Porter. [Reynolds’s note.]
The Mysteries of London Volume 1 Page 142