Leading the Blind

by Alan Sillitoe

  Having reached Irkutsk, where carriages were changed, Murray says that the chief hotel is excellent, though the others are ‘almost invariably dear and indifferent’. Baedeker informs us that one disadvantage is ‘the inevitable concert or “sing-song” in the dining room, which usually last far into the night’.

  If the traveller stays a while, and happens to have Bradshaw’s World Guide, 1903 for his companion, he may be alarmed by the following: ‘… the sidewalks are merely boards on cross-pieces over the open sewers. In summer it is almost impassable owing to the mud, or unbearable owing to dust. The police are few, escaped convicts and ticket-of-leave criminals many … In Irkutsk, and all towns east of it, the stranger should not walk after dark; if a carriage cannot be got, as is often the case, the only way is to tramp noisily along the planked walk; be careful in making crossings, and do not stop, or the immense mongrel mastiffs turned loose into the streets as guards will attack. To walk in the middle of the road is to court attack from the garrotters, with which Siberian towns abound.’

  In 1901 Harry de Windt set out from Paris to northwestern Siberia, and reached Alaska by crossing the Bering Strait, his epic journey narrated in From Paris to New York by Land. At Irkutsk his party put up at the Hotel Metropole (mentioned in Baedeker, though not in Bradshaw, nor in the Guide to the Great Siberian Railways, 1901) which he found something of a shock to enter, ‘such a noisesome den, suggestive of a Whitechapel slum, although its prices equalled those of the Carlton in Pall Mall. The house was new but jerry-built, reeks of drains, and swarmed with vermin. Having kept us shivering for half an hour in the cold, a sleepy, shock-headed lad with guttering candle appeared and led the way to a dark and ill-smelling sleeping-apartment. The latter contained an iron bedstead (an unknown luxury here a decade ago), but relays of guests had evidently used the crumpled sheets and grimy pillows.’

  After some time in Irkutsk, de Windt continues his trek of thousands of miles across the Tundra armed with revolvers and two rifles, as well as a fowling piece.

  It is now time to assume, however, that our traveller, with much heart-yearning, wishes to turn his tracks towards Home. Before he can do so he will have read in his Baedeker that on leaving Russia he must ‘report his intentions to the Police Authorities, handing in his passport and a certificate from the police officials of the district in which he has been living to the effect that nothing stands in the way of his departure’. Having obtained this, he will go to the offices of the International Sleeping Car Company and buy a ticket to London for nine pounds in gold, which haven he will reach in sixty-five hours.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ENGLAND, HOME AND BEAUTY

  ‘How happy and green the country looked as the chaise whirled rapidly from milestone to milestone, through neat country towns where landlords came out to welcome him with smiles and bows; by pretty roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and horses and waggoners were drinking under the chequered shadow of the trees; by old halls and parks, rustic hamlets clustered around ancient grey churches – and through the charming friendly English landscape. Is there any in the world like it?’

  So Thackeray summed up the feelings of English travellers coming home from Abroad, but what would be the reaction of foreigners to the country who were seeing it for the first time or, for that matter, the ex-convict returning from the Antipodes after he had made good and become rich – and possibly changed his name? The difficulty here is that guidebooks for foreigners in their own language were somewhat scarce. The guidebook in the nineteenth century was, initially, a British and a German invention, people from those countries being the first to have the money and the intellectual curiosity to travel, at least in any numbers.

  Most guidebooks to England were put out in English for the use of the English, and many excellent series soon provided total coverage of Great Britain and Ireland. A. & C. Black’s of Edinburgh produced some forty-four volumes (the first one, to Scotland, appeared in 1826), and John Murray forty volumes of county and cathedral guides. Later in the century came Baddeley’s Thorough Guides of nineteen volumes, with excellent maps and plans by Bartholomew. A little later nearly ninety volumes of Ward Lock’s Red Shilling Guides went on the bookstalls, as well as fifty volumes of Methuen’s Little Guides and twenty-four volumes of the excellent Highways and Byways series. This made the British Isles an extremely well guidebooked country, with something over two hundred titles, so that anyone going on holiday to Derbyshire, for example, had at least seven good manuals to choose from.

  The question is, how critical were they, or how purblind, to the conditions of the country they so meticulously described? The first Baedeker to England (though in German) did not appear until 1862, a French edition following in 1866, while the Guide Joanne: Londres Illustré came out in 1865. The foreign traveller, each of them tells us, had no need of a passport for a visit to England, though it was wise to carry one as proof of identity, and so as to have no trouble when returning to their own country.

  The only thing to worry about regarding the English Customs were ‘liqueurs spiritueuses’ and cigars in excess of 250 grammes, though English books printed on the Continent could not be brought in. The Guide Joanne says that the crowds of people who besiege the traveller on his arrival at the London station offering to carry his baggage and take him to the best hotel should be ignored, since they are known in England by the name of sharks (requins) and are apt to prey on him.

  The traveller should get himself into a cab as soon as possible. The foreigner who doesn’t know English will be confused on getting to London for the first time, so it would be best if he could write to a friend beforehand, and also consult a plan of London. In any case he should get quickly to a hotel that has been recommended to him as economical, and only stay the absolute minimum of time necessary in which to find lodgings in a private house.

  Baedeker says that if the traveller wants information all he has to do is ask a policeman. There are seven thousand of them in London, each, according to Murray, paid eighteen shillings a week, ‘with clothing and 40lbs. of coal weekly to each married man all the year; 40lbs. weekly to each single man during six months, and 20lbs. weekly during the remainder of the year’.

  The duty of the police is to control traffic and more or less guarantee the safety of people from – Baedeker tells us – the fifteen thousand pickpockets who infest the capital. ‘The number of persons taken into custody between 1844 and 1848 inclusive,’ Murray goes on, ‘amounted to 374,710. Robberies during the same period were 71,000, and the value of property stolen was £271,000 of which £55,000 was recovered.’

  One is advised by Baedeker to address a passer-by only in case of absolute necessity, and not to reply to any question addressed to him on the street, especially in French or German, for it is usually the preliminary to some thievery or trick. ‘We recommend that in general the traveller should be on his guard, and above all to keep an eye constantly on his purse or watch, because London swarms with thieves, and even those who live in London do not escape their attentions.’

  Murray tells us to beware of mock auctions at shops, and also not to drink the ‘unwholesome water furnished to the tanks of houses from the Thames’. Should you become ill, beware of falling into the hands of a charlatan. It is better to get the address of a good doctor from someone who lives in the same neighbourhood.

  In the hotel you should lock your door on going out and, even in the best hotels, lock it also before going to sleep. Valuables are best kept secured in your trunk, because the wardrobe locks are not sufficiently solid. Anything really valuable should be left with the proprietor of the hotel – but get a receipt. In private lodgings the traveller should take particular care in this respect.

  Most hotels forbid smoking in the bedrooms and dining room, though special rooms are set aside for smokers. Cigars are an item of luxury in London, the expense being somewhat reduced since one is not allowed to smoke in crowded places, as on the Continent. One can’t find cigar
s as cheap as in Germany or, if you can, they are usually bad, so it is better to buy them from the same place each day, where the shopkeeper will get to know you and give a good brand. Murray warns us never to listen to offers of ‘smuggled’ cigars on the streets.

  As for restaurants, English cooking deserves neither the pompous praise often lavished on it, says Baedeker, nor the absolute condemnation of which it is sometimes the object. Murray’s Handbook to London, 1864 tells us that the population is 2,803,634. ‘The Metropolis is supposed to consume in one year 1,600,000 quarters of wheat, 240,000 bullocks, 1,700,000 sheep, 28,000 calves, and 35,000 pigs. One market alone (Leadenhall) supplies about 4,025,000 head of game. This, together with 3,000,000 salmon, irrespective of other fish and flesh, is washed down by 43,200,000 gallons of porter and ale, 2,000,000 gallons of spirits, and 65,000 pipes of wine. To fill its milk and cream jugs, 13,000 cows are kept. The thirsty souls of London need have no fear of becoming thirstier as long as there are upwards of 4000 public-houses and 1000 wine merchants to minister to their deathless thirst.’

  In the restaurants one could have oxtail soup for eightpence, a chop for sixpence, a chicken for a shilling, or a rump steak for tenpence; for vegetables there were potatoes for a penny, cabbage for twopence, or spinach for threepence; as for dessert there was plum pudding or rice pudding for fourpence, and cheese at twopence, accompanied perhaps by a pint of stout for fourpence. ‘The wine is generally expensive and bad in England. Claret is the name given to French red wine of an inferior quality. In many dining rooms it is the custom to serve every quarter of an hour a roast joint. At a given signal an enormous platter is wheeled in and you are free to cut the part which you desire. In these sorts of establishment the meat generally leaves little to be desired.’

  Baedeker says that London is growing bigger by the day, and that its ten thousand streets contain nearly four hundred thousand houses, including ‘796 boarding houses, 330 restaurants, 883 cafés, and 398 hotels’. Furthermore, ‘The census of 1861 listed 25,000 tailors, 45,000 dressmakers, and 180,000 domestic servants of both sexes.’

  To light the city at night, ‘360,000 gas-lights fringe the streets, while to warm its people and to supply its factories, a fleet of a thousand sail is employed in bringing annually 3,000,000 tons of coal, exclusive of what is brought by rail. The smoke from this immense quantity of coal has often been traced as far as Reading, 32 miles distant.’

  Murray tells us that the streets of the Metropolis would, if put together, ‘extend 3000 miles in length. The main thoroughfares are traversed by 1200 omnibuses, and 3500 cabs (besides private carriages and carts), employing 40,000 horses.’ The thought here occurs that if each horse deposited on the street five pounds of dung on average, the resulting hundred or so tons of overspread must have created an abominable stench, though not perhaps as piercing as that which comes from traffic today.

  All books agree that the traveller could not fail to be astonished at the complicated enormity of London – the first city of the world in population and extent wherein, says Baedeker, ‘everything seems rare and even unique. Nevertheless familiarity will exercise its influence, and the stranger will soon get so used to its peculiarities that they will cease to astonish.’

  We are told to remember that: ‘The English are attached with much tenacious partiality to their institutions that have been passed down to them by their ancestors; and it is true to say that Great Britain is indebted in some way to these institutions for a good part of its present grandeur.’

  In the London Postal District there were eleven deliveries of letters daily, and those letters put into the box before six at night were delivered the same evening. Baedeker tells of the many marvels to be seen, but says also: ‘The numerous churches in London, with the exception of the most important, are mentioned only in passing, the majority are not worth mentioning: a single glance which the foreigner casts on one or another of these temples will be enough to prove that they are absolutely devoid of interest from the artistic point of view, and that they merit only the attention of the theologian (of whom there are many from the numerous sects which exist in London).’

  Special warning is given about the strict observation of the Sabbath. Hippolyte Taine’s first Sunday in London was probably the unhappiest day in his life, since he tells us that he was prepared to ‘commit suicide after an hour’s walk past the closed shops. Everything is gloomy and sooty. Somerset House is a frightful thing, Nelson is hideous, like a rat impaled on the top of a pole’, and so forth. He quotes a fellow-countryman’s words to the effect that: ‘Here religion spoils one day out of seven, and destroys the seventh part of possible happiness.’

  All shops are closed but ‘it is better to go out into the country on that day, where you may satisfy your appetite at any hour, and rest from the noise which you have had to put up with all week. You may also thus at the same time see how the middle and lower classes of English society, who make long excursions in the environs of London with all the family, including small children, lie on the grass, unwrap all sorts of toys, singing and enjoying themselves, and then going home late on the omnibus. Hampton Court is the only establishment open on Sunday: one must therefore take care to visit it in the week.’

  The traveller is liable to be confused in the matter of money and coinage, for he will have to deal with such arcane rarities as guineas, pounds, sovereigns, half-sovereigns, crowns, half-crowns, florins, shillings, sixpences, fourpences, pennies, halfpennies and farthings. Possibilities for imposition must have been boundless.

  Regarding public conveniences, there are: ‘Closets for ladies in all the railway stations (the Ladies’ waiting room) and at all the Pastry-cooks; then in the main stores. For men, at the stations, in the dining rooms and at public houses. If you are in doubt the best plan is to ask a policeman: “Will you tell me, please, where is the nearest place of convenience?”’

  A list of the places to see followed by meticulous descriptions in the Guide Joanne include the Prison de Newgate, Hospice de Chelsea, Musée Britannique, Galérie Nationale, Musée de South-Kensington, Galérie National des Portraits, Pare de Saint-James, Jardins de Kensington, Pare de Battersea, École de Westminster, Cathédrale de Saint-Paul, Abbaye de Westminster, Le Temple, Les docks, Banque d’Angleterre, and the Tour de Londres. In the environs were such attractions as the Palais de Cristal and the Jardins de Kew. Baedeker suggests three weeks in which to see everything, but adds that much more time could profitably be spent.

  The outer environs were not without interest: a steamboat from Charing Cross would take you to Woolwich, where English subjects could visit the arsenal and citadel, accompanied by an officer of the garrison, while foreigners had to obtain a letter of introduction from their ambassador. Later in the nineteenth century a service of steamers on the Thames ran as far as Oxford, daily in the summer – though not on Sundays.

  The map in Baedeker showed England as already covered by a dense network of railways, so there was no difficulty in going to all the main towns, while those off the beaten track could be reached by coach. Brighton was an hour and twenty-five minutes away, though the Guide Joanne is somewhat contemptuous of Le Pavilion: ‘… un édifice du style le plus ridicule et le plus étrange: une pagode indienne ou javanaise sous un ciel moins beau que celui de l’Inde ou de Java.’ Baedeker, who knocks five minutes off the journey time, says that the Pavilion complex is a ‘grand et disgracieux édifice en style oriental …’

  County and regional guidebooks in English gave no information on how foreigners should behave, and the only translated book which did so will be examined later. A curious book entitled Foreign Visitors to England, 1889, deals mostly with travellers’ impressions from a somewhat earlier age. According to Misson (1688): ‘The inhabitants of this excellent country are tall, handsome, well made, fair, active, robust, courageous, thoughtful, devout, lovers of the liberal arts, and as capable of the sciences as any people in the world.’

  On the other hand, a certain Dr
Gemelli-Careri (1686), perhaps knowing something of the Englishman’s opinion of his countrymen, says: ‘The commonalty are rude, cruel, addicted to thieving and robbing, faithless, headstrong, inclined to strife and mutiny, gluttonous, and superstitiously addicted to the predictions of foolish astrologers; in short, of a very extravagant temper, delighting in the noise of guns, drums, and bells, as if it were some sweet harmony.’

  Returning to the nineteenth century, an American, Professor Poppin (1867), in a study of English character, says: ‘If I could chastise my own intemperate nationality, and not let it stick out offensively, I soon made friends with Englishmen who, in the end, would volunteer more in reference to their own failings than I should ever have thought of producing them to. Mutual pride prevents Englishmen and Americans from seeing each other’s good traits and positive resemblances. And all Englishmen are not disagreeable, neither are all Americans insufferable.’

  In 1835 Frederick von Raumer pontificated in a book about England, as if he would rather like its inhabitants to become Prussians, that: ‘The spirit of resistance to power, which grows with rank luxuriance on the rough uncultured soil of the people, has a native life which, when trained and pruned, bears the noblest fruit, such, for instance, as heroic devotion to country.’

  We will now lure our intrepid foreigner into terra incognita, to those parts of Great Britain beyond London with which many natives even today are so little familiar that it might be as well to quote Thomas Fuller on the matter: ‘Know most of the rooms of thy native country before thou goest over the threshold thereof, especially seeing England presents thee with so many observables.’