The Uncommercial Traveller

by Dickens, Charles

  morning, and butter the pavement for HIM, and, when he had brought

  him down, would look severely out of his study window and ask HIM

  how he enjoyed the fun.

  I thought how Mr. Barlow would heat all the pokers in the house,

  and singe him with the whole collection, to bring him better

  acquainted with the properties of incandescent iron, on which he

  (Barlow) would fully expatiate. I pictured Mr. Barlow's

  instituting a comparison between the clown's conduct at his

  studies, - drinking up the ink, licking his copy-book, and using

  his head for blotting-paper, - and that of the already mentioned

  young prig of prigs, Harry, sitting at the Barlovian feet,

  sneakingly pretending to be in a rapture of youthful knowledge. I

  thought how soon Mr. Barlow would smooth the clown's hair down,

  instead of letting it stand erect in three tall tufts; and how,

  after a couple of years or so with Mr. Barlow, he would keep his

  legs close together when he walked, and would take his hands out of

  his big loose pockets, and wouldn't have a jump left in him.

  That I am particularly ignorant what most things in the universe

  are made of, and how they are made, is another of my charges

  against Mr. Barlow. With the dread upon me of developing into a

  Harry, and with a further dread upon me of being Barlowed if I made

  inquiries, by bringing down upon myself a cold shower-bath of

  explanations and experiments, I forbore enlightenment in my youth,

  and became, as they say in melodramas, 'the wreck you now behold.'

  That I consorted with idlers and dunces is another of the

  melancholy facts for which I hold Mr. Barlow responsible. That

  pragmatical prig, Harry, became so detestable in my sight, that, he

  being reported studious in the South, I would have fled idle to the

  extremest North. Better to learn misconduct from a Master Mash

  than science and statistics from a Sandford! So I took the path,

  which, but for Mr. Barlow, I might never have trodden. Thought I,

  with a shudder, 'Mr. Barlow is a bore, with an immense constructive

  power of making bores. His prize specimen is a bore. He seeks to

  make a bore of me. That knowledge is power I am not prepared to

  gainsay; but, with Mr. Barlow, knowledge is power to bore.'

  Therefore I took refuge in the caves of ignorance, wherein I have

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  resided ever since, and which are still my private address.

  But the weightiest charge of all my charges against Mr. Barlow is,

  that he still walks the earth in various disguises, seeking to make

  a Tommy of me, even in my maturity. Irrepressible, instructive

  monomaniac, Mr. Barlow fills my life with pitfalls, and lies hiding

  at the bottom to burst out upon me when I least expect him.

  A few of these dismal experiences of mine shall suffice.

  Knowing Mr. Barlow to have invested largely in the moving panorama

  trade, and having on various occasions identified him in the dark

  with a long wand in his hand, holding forth in his old way (made

  more appalling in this connection by his sometimes cracking a piece

  of Mr. Carlyle's own Dead-Sea fruit in mistake for a joke), I

  systematically shun pictorial entertainment on rollers. Similarly,

  I should demand responsible bail and guaranty against the

  appearance of Mr. Barlow, before committing myself to attendance at

  any assemblage of my fellow-creatures where a bottle of water and a

  note-book were conspicuous objects; for in either of those

  associations, I should expressly expect him. But such is the

  designing nature of the man, that he steals in where no reasoning

  precaution or provision could expect him. As in the following

  case:-

  Adjoining the Caves of Ignorance is a country town. In this

  country town the Mississippi Momuses, nine in number, were

  announced to appear in the town-hall, for the general delectation,

  this last Christmas week. Knowing Mr. Barlow to be unconnected

  with the Mississippi, though holding republican opinions, and

  deeming myself secure, I took a stall. My object was to hear and

  see the Mississippi Momuses in what the bills described as their

  'National ballads, plantation break-downs, nigger part-songs,

  choice conundrums, sparkling repartees, &c.' I found the nine

  dressed alike, in the black coat and trousers, white waistcoat,

  very large shirt-front, very large shirt-collar, and very large

  white tie and wristbands, which constitute the dress of the mass of

  the African race, and which has been observed by travellers to

  prevail over a vast number of degrees of latitude. All the nine

  rolled their eyes exceedingly, and had very red lips. At the

  extremities of the curve they formed, seated in their chairs, were

  the performers on the tambourine and bones. The centre Momus, a

  black of melancholy aspect (who inspired me with a vague uneasiness

  for which I could not then account), performed on a Mississippi

  instrument closely resembling what was once called in this island a

  hurdy-gurdy. The Momuses on either side of him had each another

  instrument peculiar to the Father of Waters, which may be likened

  to a stringed weather-glass held upside down. There were likewise

  a little flute and a violin. All went well for awhile, and we had

  had several sparkling repartees exchanged between the performers on

  the tambourine and bones, when the black of melancholy aspect,

  turning to the latter, and addressing him in a deep and improving

  voice as 'Bones, sir,' delivered certain grave remarks to him

  concerning the juveniles present, and the season of the year;

  whereon I perceived that I was in the presence of Mr. Barlow -

  corked!

  Another night - and this was in London - I attended the

  representation of a little comedy. As the characters were lifelike

  (and consequently not improving), and as they went upon their

  several ways and designs without personally addressing themselves

  to me, I felt rather confident of coming through it without being

  regarded as Tommy, the more so, as we were clearly getting close to

  the end. But I deceived myself. All of a sudden, Apropos of

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  nothing, everybody concerned came to a check and halt, advanced to

  the foot-lights in a general rally to take dead aim at me, and

  brought me down with a moral homily, in which I detected the dread

  hand of Barlow.

  Nay, so intricate and subtle are the toils of this hunter, that on

  the very next night after that, I was again entrapped, where no

  vestige of a spring could have been apprehended by the timidest.

  It was a burlesque that I saw performed; an uncompromising

  burlesque, where everybody concerned, but especially the ladies,

  carried on at a very considerable rate indeed. Most prominent and

  active among the corps of performers was what I took to be (and she

  really gave me very fair opportunities of coming to a right

  conclusion) a young lady of a pretty figure. She was dressed as a

  picturesque yo
ung gentleman, whose pantaloons had been cut off in

  their infancy; and she had very neat knees and very neat satin

  boots. Immediately after singing a slang song and dancing a slang

  dance, this engaging figure approached the fatal lamps, and,

  bending over them, delivered in a thrilling voice a random eulogium

  on, and exhortation to pursue, the virtues. 'Great Heaven!' was my

  exclamation; 'Barlow!'

  There is still another aspect in which Mr. Barlow perpetually

  insists on my sustaining the character of Tommy, which is more

  unendurable yet, on account of its extreme aggressiveness. For the

  purposes of a review or newspaper, he will get up an abstruse

  subject with definite pains, will Barlow, utterly regardless of the

  price of midnight oil, and indeed of everything else, save cramming

  himself to the eyes.

  But mark. When Mr. Barlow blows his information off, he is not

  contented with having rammed it home, and discharged it upon me,

  Tommy, his target, but he pretends that he was always in possession

  of it, and made nothing of it, - that he imbibed it with mother's

  milk, - and that I, the wretched Tommy, am most abjectly behindhand

  in not having done the same. I ask, why is Tommy to be always the

  foil of Mr. Barlow to this extent? What Mr. Barlow had not the

  slightest notion of himself, a week ago, it surely cannot be any

  very heavy backsliding in me not to have at my fingers' ends today!

  And yet Mr. Barlow systematically carries it over me with a

  high hand, and will tauntingly ask me, in his articles, whether it

  is possible that I am not aware that every school-boy knows that

  the fourteenth turning on the left in the steppes of Russia will

  conduct to such and such a wandering tribe? with other disparaging

  questions of like nature. So, when Mr. Barlow addresses a letter

  to any journal as a volunteer correspondent (which I frequently

  find him doing), he will previously have gotten somebody to tell

  him some tremendous technicality, and will write in the coolest

  manner, 'Now, sir, I may assume that every reader of your columns,

  possessing average information and intelligence, knows as well as I

  do that' - say that the draught from the touch-hole of a cannon of

  such a calibre bears such a proportion in the nicest fractions to

  the draught from the muzzle; or some equally familiar little fact.

  But whatever it is, be certain that it always tends to the

  exaltation of Mr. Barlow, and the depression of his enforced and

  enslaved pupil.

  Mr. Barlow's knowledge of my own pursuits I find to be so profound,

  that my own knowledge of them becomes as nothing. Mr. Barlow

  (disguised and bearing a feigned name, but detected by me) has

  occasionally taught me, in a sonorous voice, from end to end of a

  long dinner-table, trifles that I took the liberty of teaching him

  five-and-twenty years ago. My closing article of impeachment

  against Mr. Barlow is, that he goes out to breakfast, goes out to

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  dinner, goes out everywhere, high and low, and that he WILL preach

  to me, and that I CAN'T get rid of him. He makes me a Promethean

  Tommy, bound; and he is the vulture that gorges itself upon the

  liver of my uninstructed mind.

  CHAPTER XXXV - ON AN AMATEUR BEAT

  It is one of my fancies, that even my idlest walk must always have

  its appointed destination. I set myself a task before I leave my

  lodging in Covent-garden on a street expedition, and should no more

  think of altering my route by the way, or turning back and leaving

  a part of it unachieved, than I should think of fraudulently

  violating an agreement entered into with somebody else. The other

  day, finding myself under this kind of obligation to proceed to

  Limehouse, I started punctually at noon, in compliance with the

  terms of the contract with myself to which my good faith was

  pledged.

  On such an occasion, it is my habit to regard my walk as my beat,

  and myself as a higher sort of police-constable doing duty on the

  same. There is many a ruffian in the streets whom I mentally

  collar and clear out of them, who would see mighty little of

  London, I can tell him, if I could deal with him physically.

  Issuing forth upon this very beat, and following with my eyes three

  hulking garrotters on their way home, - which home I could

  confidently swear to be within so many yards of Drury-lane, in such

  a narrow and restricted direction (though they live in their

  lodging quite as undisturbed as I in mine), - I went on duty with a

  consideration which I respectfully offer to the new Chief

  Commissioner, - in whom I thoroughly confide as a tried and

  efficient public servant. How often (thought I) have I been forced

  to swallow, in police-reports, the intolerable stereotyped pill of

  nonsense, how that the police-constable informed the worthy

  magistrate how that the associates of the prisoner did, at that

  present speaking, dwell in a street or court which no man dared go

  down, and how that the worthy magistrate had heard of the dark

  reputation of such street or court, and how that our readers would

  doubtless remember that it was always the same street or court

  which was thus edifyingly discoursed about, say once a fortnight.

  Now, suppose that a Chief Commissioner sent round a circular to

  every division of police employed in London, requiring instantly

  the names in all districts of all such much-puffed streets or

  courts which no man durst go down; and suppose that in such

  circular he gave plain warning, 'If those places really exist, they

  are a proof of police inefficiency which I mean to punish; and if

  they do not exist, but are a conventional fiction, then they are a

  proof of lazy tacit police connivance with professional crime,

  which I also mean to punish' - what then? Fictions or realities,

  could they survive the touchstone of this atom of common sense? To

  tell us in open court, until it has become as trite a feature of

  news as the great gooseberry, that a costly police-system such as

  was never before heard of, has left in London, in the days of steam

  and gas and photographs of thieves and electric telegraphs, the

  sanctuaries and stews of the Stuarts! Why, a parity of practice,

  in all departments, would bring back the Plague in two summers, and

  the Druids in a century!

  Walking faster under my share of this public injury, I overturned a

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  wretched little creature, who, clutching at the rags of a pair of

  trousers with one of its claws, and at its ragged hair with the

  other, pattered with bare feet over the muddy stones. I stopped to

  raise and succour this poor weeping wretch, and fifty like it, but

  of both sexes, were about me in a moment, begging, tumbling,

  fighting, clamouring, yelling, shivering in their nakedness and

  hunger. The piece of money I had put into the claw of the child I

  had over-turned was clawed out of it, and was again clawed out of


  that wolfish gripe, and again out of that, and soon I had no notion

  in what part of the obscene scuffle in the mud, of rags and legs

  and arms and dirt, the money might be. In raising the child, I had

  drawn it aside out of the main thoroughfare, and this took place

  among some wooden hoardings and barriers and ruins of demolished

  buildings, hard by Temple Bar.

  Unexpectedly, from among them emerged a genuine police-constable,

  before whom the dreadful brood dispersed in various directions, he

  making feints and darts in this direction and in that, and catching

  nothing. When all were frightened away, he took off his hat,

  pulled out a handkerchief from it, wiped his heated brow, and

  restored the handkerchief and hat to their places, with the air of

  a man who had discharged a great moral duty, - as indeed he had, in

  doing what was set down for him. I looked at him, and I looked

  about at the disorderly traces in the mud, and I thought of the

  drops of rain and the footprints of an extinct creature, hoary ages

  upon ages old, that geologists have identified on the face of a

  cliff; and this speculation came over me: If this mud could

  petrify at this moment, and could lie concealed here for ten

  thousand years, I wonder whether the race of men then to be our

  successors on the earth could, from these or any marks, by the

  utmost force of the human intellect, unassisted by tradition,

  deduce such an astounding inference as the existence of a polished

  state of society that bore with the public savagery of neglected

  children in the streets of its capital city, and was proud of its

  power by sea and land, and never used its power to seize and save

  them!

  After this, when I came to the Old Bailey and glanced up it towards

  Newgate, I found that the prison had an inconsistent look. There

  seemed to be some unlucky inconsistency in the atmosphere that day;

  for though the proportions of St. Paul's Cathedral are very

  beautiful, it had an air of being somewhat out of drawing, in my

  eyes. I felt as though the cross were too high up, and perched

  upon the intervening golden ball too far away.

  Facing eastward, I left behind me Smithfield and Old Bailey, - fire

  and faggot, condemned hold, public hanging, whipping through the

  city at the cart-tail, pillory, branding-iron, and other beautiful

  ancestral landmarks, which rude hands have rooted up, without