The first true music hall was Charles Morton’s The Canterbury in Lambeth in 1854, offering drink, food, comedy and song; the music hall also spread rapidly in the East End, and then to the West End: the Alhambra in Leicester Square in 1861, the London Pavilion in Piccadilly. By 1866, there were some thirty large London halls seating 1,000 or more, and some 200 smaller halls. Three hundred were to be found elsewhere: 10 in Sheffield, 9 in Birmingham, 8 each in Manchester and Leeds.
Popular throughout the middle of the century were the various entertainment gardens, such as the Vauxhall and Cremorne Gardens in Chelsea; these offered gardens, sideshows, spectacular or extraordinary displays (tightrope walkers, hot-air balloons, dioramas; unforgettably, the Montpelier Teagardens in Walworth offered a cricket match between eleven one-legged and eleven one-armed pensioners from Greenwich Hospital), as well as restaurants and dining alcoves, dance floors, shady walks and opportunities to meet sexual partners. Eventually they became too disreputable: the Cremorne closed in 1877.
Also providing ‘fresh air and fun’ were boat-trips around the coast or down the Thames, and visits to the seaside (Brighton for the raffish, Broadstairs for Dickens and the sober middle classes, Margate and Blackpool for the workers); swimming was becoming popular – until at least the middle of the century men might bathe naked, while ladies wore voluminous bathing costumes. Excursions were organised by Thomas Cook, who in 1841 arranged a special train from Leicester (escaping a rowdy race meeting) to attend a temperance rally in Loughborough; by 1845 he could offer a pleasure trip to Liverpool, by 1855 to Calais to go to the Paris Exhibition, and by 1856, a Grand Tour in Europe.
Sports also were organised by the respectable middle classes, repressing traditional activities such as parish feasts and fairs, and cruel sports (bull and bear-baiting were proscribed in 1835, cockfighting in 1849, badger-baiting in 1850). Bare-knuckle fighting was slowly disciplined, with the Queensberry Rules in 1867. Order was brought to football, with Football Association rules established in 1863, and Lawn Tennis in 1874; the county cricket championship began in 1873.
With cheaper food, better pay, shorter working days and weeks, life had become easier and fuller for everyone.
Taking the average Englishman and the average Frenchman, the former goes oftener to the theatre, has more holidays, laughs more and spends more evenings where something beside a drink and smoke are to be had for his money, than the latter; and yet the average Frenchman is mistakenly held up as a devotee of amusement.
S. Fiske, English Photographs by an American (1869)
* * *
THE POET IN THE WORLD
Nay, if there’s room for poets in this world
A little overgrown (I think there is),
Their sole work is to represent the age,
Their age, not Charlemagne’s – this live, throbbing age,
That brawls, cheats, maddens, calculates, aspires,
And spends more passion, more heroic heat,
Betwixt the mirrors of its drawing-rooms,
Than Roland with his knights at Roncesvalles.
To flinch from modern varnish, coat or flounce,
Cry out for togas and the picturesque,
Is fatal – foolish too. King Arthur’s self
Was commonplace to Lady Guenever;
And Camelot to minstrels seemed as flat
As Fleet Street to our poets.
Never flinch,
But still, unscrupulously epic, catch
Upon the burning lava of a song
The full-veined, heaving, double-breasted Age;
That, when the next shall come, the men of that
May touch the impress with reverent hand, and say
‘Behold – behold the paps we all have sucked!
This bosom seems to beat still, or at least
It sets ours beating; this is living art,
Which thus presents and thus records true life.’
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1857)
PROPER ART
Mr Podsnap’s world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, ‘Not English!’ when Presto! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away. Elsewise, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarter past, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined at seven. Mr Podsnap’s notions of the Arts in their integrity might have been stated thus. Literature: large print, respectively descriptive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five and dining at seven. Painting and Sculpture: models and portraits representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five and dining at seven. Music: a respectable performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at half-past five and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to those same vagrants the Arts, on pain of excommunication. Nothing else To Be – anywhere! . . .
A certain institution in Mr Podsnap’s mind which he called ‘the young person’ may be considered to have been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring a blush into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was that, according to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared to be no line of demarcation between the young person’s excessive innocence, and another person’s guiltiest knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap’s word for it, and the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac and grey, were all flaming red to this troublesome bull of a young person.
Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend (1865)
FICTIONS FOR HEALTHY MINDS
[The sanatorium provides] ‘Only such novels as I have selected and perused myself, in the first instance,’ said the doctor. ‘Nothing powerful, ma’am! There may be plenty that is painful in real life – but for that very reason we don’t want it in books. The English novelist who enters my house (no foreign novelist will be admitted) must understand his art as the healthy-minded English reader understands it in our time. . . . All we want of him is – occasionally to make us laugh; and invariably to make us comfortable.’
Wilkie Collins, Armadale (1877)
QUICKENED SENSE OF LIFE
The service of philosophy, and of religion and culture as well, to the human spirit, is to startle it into a sharp and eager observation. Every moment some form grows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or sea is choicer than the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual excitement is irresistibly real and attractive to us – for that moment only. Not the fruit of experience but experience itself is the end. A counted number of pulses only is given to us of a variegated, dramatic life. How may we see in them all that is to be seen in them by the finest senses? How can we pass most swiftly from point to point, and be present always at the focus where the greatest numbers of vital forces unite in their purest energy?
To burn always with this hard gem-like flame, to maintain this ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to form habits; for habit is relative to a stereotyped world; meantime it is only the roughness of the eye that makes any two persons, things, situations, seem alike. While all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any exquisite passion, or any contribution to human knowledge that seems, by a lifted horizon, to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of the senses, strange dyes, strange flowers, and curious odours, or work of the artist’s hands, or the face of one
’s friend. Not to discriminate every moment some passionate attitude in those about us, and in the brilliance of their gifts some tragic dividing of forces on their ways is, on this short day of frost and sun, to sleep before evening. With this sense of the splendour of our experience and of its awful brevity, gathering all we are into one desperate effort to see and touch, we shall hardly have time to make theories about the things we see and touch. What we have to do is to be for ever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions, never acquiescing in a facile orthodoxy. . . .
High passions give one this quickened sense of life, ecstasy and sorrow of love, political or religious enthusiasm, or the ‘enthusiasm of humanity’. Only, be sure it is passion, that it does yield you this fruit of a quickened, multiplied consciousness. Of this wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for art’s sake has most; for art comes to you professing frankly to give nothing but the highest quality to your moments as they pass, and simply for those moments’ sake.
Walter Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance (1877)
ENTHUSIASM OF HUMANITY
‘You promised me, if you recollect,’ said Tom to his friend, ‘that you would show me a bit of fun at this end of the Town; and we cannot have a better opportunity than the present moment.’ ‘It shall be so,’ replied the gentleman, smiling; ‘and as you have your ‘Highflyers’ at ALMACK’S [exclusive assembly hall] at the West End, we have also some ‘choice creatures’ at ALL MAX (vulgarly called gin) in the East; where you shall be in less than half an hour to judge for yourself.’ . . .
Ceremonies were not in use, and therefore no struggle took place at ALL MAX for the master of them. The parties paired off according to fancy; the eye was pleased in the choice, and nothing thought of about birth and distinction. All was happiness, everybody free and easy, and freedom of expression allowed to the very echo. The group motley indeed: Lascars, blacks, jack tars, coal-heavers, dustmen, women of colour, old and young, and a sprinkling of remnants of once fine girls, etc., were all jigging together, provided the teaser of the catgut was not bilked of his duce [twopence]. Gloves might have been laughed at, as dirty hands produced no squeamishness on the heroines in the dance, and the scene changed as often as a pantomime, from the continual introduction of new characters. Heavy wet [porter, beer] was the cooling beverage, but frequently overtaken by flashes of lightning [gin]. The covey was no scholard, as he asserted, and therefore he held the pot in one hand and took the blunt with the other, to prevent the trouble of chalking [writing a bill] or making mistakes. Cocker’s arithmetic in his bar was a dead letter, and the publican’s ledger only waste paper; book-keeping did not belong to his consarn; yet no one could read his customers better than Mr Mace. (It is rather a curious coincidence, that the name of the proprietor of ALL MAX should be Mace, which is a slang term for imposition or robbery!). . . . On the sudden appearance of our ‘swell TRIO’ and the CORINTHIAN’S friend among those unsophisticated sons and daughters of Nature, their ogles were on the roll, under an apprehension that the beaks [police] were out on the nose; but it was soon made ‘all right’ by one of the mollishers [tarts] whispering, loud enough to be heard by most of the party, ‘that she understood as how the gemmen had only dropped in for to have a bit of a spree, and there was no doubt they voud stand a drap of summat to make them all cumfurable, and likewise prove good customers to the crib.’ On the office being giving, the stand-still was instantly removed, and the kidwys and kiddiesses were footing the double shuffle against each other with as much gig as the ‘We we-e-e-e-eps’ exert themselves on the first of May [when young chimney sweeps dressed up and sang].
The orders of the CORINTHIAN had been obeyed like winking by the knowing Mr Mace; and the ‘fair ones’ had, without hesitation, vetted both eyes with a drap of the right sort, and many of them had likewise proved jolly enough to have tossed off a third and a fourth glass. Lots of MAX were also placed on the table, and the coveys were not shy or behind-hand in helping themselves. The spree and the fun were increasing every minute, and the ‘TRIO’ made the most of it, with as much pleasure and satisfaction as the lowest mud-lark amongst the group. LOGIC (as the Plate represents) appeared as happy as a sand-boy . . . and was listening to the jargon of Black SALL, who was seated on his right knee, and very liberally treating the Oxonian with repeated chaste salutes; whilst Flashy NANCE (who had gammoned [cajoled] more seamen out of their vills and power than the ingenuity or palaver of twenty of the most knowing of the frail sisterhood could effect) was occupying LOGIC’S left knee, with her arm round his neck, laughing at the chaffing of the ‘Lady in black’ as she termed her . . .
TOM inquired of the covess of the ken (who, by-the-by, was quite pleased with the CORINTHIAN, from the very liberal manner in which he had dropped his BLUNT at her house), the names of the dancers, of whom he had observed that –
Sure such a pair were never seen!
‘Vy, sir,’ replied Mrs Mace, ‘that are black voman, who you sees dancing with nasty Bob, the coal-vhipper, is called African Sall, because she comes from foreign parts; and the little mungo in the corner, holding his arms out, is her child; yet I doesn’t think as how, for all that, SALL has got any husband; but, la! sir, it’s a poor heart that never rejoices, an’t it, sir?’ Our heroes had kept it up so gaily in dancing, drinking, etc., that the friend of the CORINTHIAN thought it was time to be missing; but, on mustering the TRIO, LOGIC was not to be found. A jack tar, about three sheets in the wind, who had been keeping up the shindy the whole of the evening with them, laughing, asked if it was the gentleman in the green barnacles [spectacles] their honours wanted, as it was very likely he had taken a voyage to Africa in the Sally, or else he was out on a cruise with the Flashy Nance; but he would have him beware of squalls, as they were not very sound in their rigging! It was considered useless to look after LOGIC, and a rattler was immediately ordered to the door; when JERRY, TOM and his friend bid adieu to ALL-MAX.
[Tom and Jerry here are the remote ancestors of the modern cartoon characters.]
Pierce Egan, Life in London (1821)
ANIMAL SPIRITS
‘What’s to pay?’ enquired Mr Jorrocks, as he reached the landing, of a forbidding-looking one-eyed hag, sitting in a little curtained corner partitioned from the scene of action by a frowsy green counterpane.
‘Oh, Mr Bowker’s free here,’ observed Bill to his gentle wife, drawing aside the curtain and exhibiting the interior. What a scene presented itself! From the centre of the unceiled, hugely-raftered roof of a spacious building hung an iron hoop, stuck round with various lengths of tallow candles, lighting an oval pit, in which two savage bulldogs were rolling and tearing each other about, under the auspices of their coatless masters, who stood at either end applauding their exertions. A vast concourse of ruffianly spectators occupied the benches rising gradually from the pit towards the rafters, along which some were carelessly stretched, lost in ecstasy at the scene below.
Ponderous draymen, in coloured plush breeches, with their enormous calves clad in dirty white stockings, sat with their red-capped heads resting on their hands, or uproariously applauding as their favourite got the turn. Smithfield drovers, with their badges and knotty clubs; huge-coated hackney coachmen; coatless butchers’ boys; dingy dustmen, with their great sou’westers; sailors, with their pipes; and Jews with oranges, were mingled with Cyprians [tarts] of the lowest order, dissolute boys, swell pick-pockets, and a few simple countrymen. At the far end of the loft, a partition concealed from view bears, badgers, and innumerable bulldogs, while ‘gentlemen of the fancy’ sat with the great round heads and glaring eyeballs of others between their knees, straining for their turn in the pit. The yells and screams of the spectators, the baying of the dogs, the growling of the bears, the worrying of the combatants, caused a shudder through the frames of Mr Jorrocks and the Yorkshireman.
A volley of yells and plaudits rent the building as the white dog pinned the brindled one for the fourteenth time,
and the lacerated animal refused to come to the scratch, and as the pit was cleared for a fresh ‘set-to’, Slender Billy, with a mildness of manner contrasting with the rudeness of the scene, passed our party on, and turned out two coal-heavers and a ticket-porter, to place them advantageously near the centre. This was a signal for renewed uproar.
‘Make way for the real swells wot pay!’ roared a stentorian voice from the rafters.
‘Crikey, it’s the Lord Mayor!’ responded a shrill one from below. ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ enquired a squeaking voice just behind.
‘There’s a brace of plummy ones!’ exclaimed another, as Bowker and Jorrocks stood up together.
‘Luff, there! luff! be serene!’ exclaimed Slender Billy, stepping into the centre of the pit, making a sign that had the effect of restoring order on the instant. Three cheers for the Captain were then called for by some friend of Bowker’s, so he opened his pea-jacket; and while they were in course of payment, two more bulldogs entered the pit, and the sports were resumed. After several dog-fights, Billy’s accomplished daughter lugged in a bear, which Billy fastened by his chain to a ring in the centre of the pit.
Dickens's England: Life in Victorian Times Page 27