Part 28

Pan is dead! So, at least, those who claim to be teachers of us English on such subjects have told us; and if our poets cannot be trusted about them, who can? The present writer, at any rate, does not pretend to an opinion whether Pan is dead, or, indeed, whether he was ever alive. But if so, he ought to have kept alive, for never surely was his special business so flourishing in our country as in these last days. All round the Welsh border on both sides there is not a hamlet which is not indulging in its “Lupercalia” in these summer days, in spite of the cold and wet which have inopportunely come upon us. For the most part, these “feasts of Pan” are almost monotonously like one another; but I have just returned from one which had characteristics of its own--a pleasing variety, and creditable, I think, to gallant little Wales, for the scene of it was over the border. My attention was called to it by a large red bill at our station, announcing that, on the 9th inst. the annual festival of the Gresford Ladies’ Club would be held, for which return tickets might be had at tempting rates; and further, that “no rifle-galleries, or stalls used for the sale of nuts and oranges, will be allowed to be put up in the village or highways on the day.” Why should a ladies’ club invite me, and all men, by large red bill, to be present at their festival, and at the same time deprive me of the chance of indulging in the favourite feast pastime of these parts? I resolved to satisfy myself; and reaching the pretty station, in due course found myself on the platform with perhaps a dozen women of all ranks and ages--evidently members of the club, for each of them wore a white scarf over the right shoulder, and carried a blue wand with a nosegay at the top. Following admiringly up the steep hill with other spectators, I saw them enter a wicket-gate under an arch of flowers, and remained outside, where the brass band of the county yeomanry were making most energetic music. Presently the gate opened, and a procession of the members emerged two-and-two, and, headed by the band in full blast, marched, a dainty procession, each one white-scarfed and carrying a nosegay-topped wand, to the parish church hard by on the hill-top. It was a unique procession, so far as my experience goes. First came the squire’s wife, the club President, with the senior member, followed by another lady, I believe from the rectory, with the member next in seniority. These two, both past eighty, I remarked, instead of the white scarf crossing the shoulder and looped at the waist with blue, wore large white handkerchiefs, trimmed with blue, over both shoulders, shawl-wise. This I found was the old custom, the regular members formerly wearing the shawl, the honorary members the scarf, for distinction’s sake. Now, all members, regular and honorary alike, wear the scarf. We are levelling up fast, and I own I regret it, in this matter of dress. As a boy, I was in this part of Wales, and almost every woman on holidays wore the red cloak and high black hat, and looked far better, I think, than their descendants at this Gresford Club fête, though several of these were as well dressed as the squire’s wife and daughters. I followed the procession into church, as did most of the crowd through which they passed, one man only refusing to join in my hearing, on the ground that he had been already to one service too many. He had got married there, his neighbour explained, and his wife was in the procession. The service was short and well chosen, with a good, sound ten-minutes sermon at the end, and then the procession re-formed, the band still leading, and marched to tea in the big schoolroom facing the churchyard. “Scholæ elymosynæ Dominæ Margarettæ Strode, fundatæ 1725, ad pauperes ejus sumptibus erudiendos,” I read over the door. I notice that the Welsh are rather given to Latin inscriptions can it be in token of defiance to vernacular English?

During the tea-hour I had the pleasure of exploring church and churchyard, the former a large and fine specimen of the later perpendicular, but containing relics of painted glass of a much earlier date, probably thirteenth century. Portions of this, of a fine straw-colour, the Rector says, are invaluable, the art being lost. I wonder what Mr. Powell would say to that? The churchyard is glorious with its yews, more than twenty grand trees, and the grandfather of them the largest but one, if not the largest, in the Kingdom. He measures 29 feet 6 inches round 6 feet from the ground, and is confidently affirmed by Welsh experts (who have duly noted it in the parish register) to be 1400 years old. Without supposing that Merlin reposed in his shade, one cannot look at him in his glorious old age and doubt that he must have been a stout tree in Plantagenet times, and furnished bow-staves for Welshmen who marched behind Fluellen to the French wars.

Presently the band struck up again, and the procession returned to the wicket-gate, through which I now gained an entrance on payment of 1s. towards the club funds, one of the best investments of the kind I have ever made, for inside is the most perfect miniature village green I should think in the world, take it all in all. It is a natural terrace about one hundred yards long, by (perhaps) forty broad, on the side of the steep, finely wooded hill, with the station down below, and the church and village above. The valley, which runs up into the Welsh hills to the west, is here narrow, with a bright trout-stream dancing along between emerald meadows out into the great Cheshire plain, over which, in the distance, rise the cathedral towers and the castle and spires of Chester. One can fancy the hungry eyes with which many a Welshman has looked over that splendid countryside from this perch on the hillside when Hugh Lupus and his successors were keeping the border, with short shrift for cattle-lifters. It is well worth the while of any of your readers who may be passing Gresford Station this autumn, to stop over a train, and go up and spend an hour there. But I must get back to the ladies’ club, who now, at 6 P.M., opened the three hours’ dance on the green, the great feature of the gathering. It began with a country-dance, at which we males could only gaze and admire. As before, the squire’s wife and the senior member led off, and went down the thirty or forty couples. What wonderful women are these Welsh! I was fascinated by the next senior, a dear old soul, who had only missed this dance twice in more than sixty years, and was in such a hurry to get under way, that she started before the leading couple had got properly ahead, rather thereby confusing the subsequent saltations. When the music at last stopped, she sat herself on a bench, a picture of joyous old age, and declared that if she had been a rich woman, she should have spent all her substance in keeping a band. After the country-dance came polkas, in which I noted that for some time the men, by way of reprisals, I suppose, danced together; but this did not last long, and presently the couples were sorted in the usual manner, and when the station-bell warned me to speed down the hill, I left them all as busy on the green as the elves (perhaps) may be in the moonlight, or Pan’s troop in the days before his lamented decease. On my way home I mused on the cheering evidence the day had afforded of the healthy progress of the great task which has been laid on this generation, and’ which it seems to be taking hold of so strenuously and hopefully. I do not know that I ever saw so entirely satisfactory a blending of all classes in common enjoyment, which to some extent I attribute to the custom of the procession, and the sorting of honorary and regular members above noticed. During the whole afternoon I never heard a word which might not have been spoken in a drawing-room, and in spite of the rigorous exclusion of tobacco, there was no lack of young men. I question whether it would be possible to see the like in any exclusive gathering, either of the classes or the masses. The club is as prosperous financially, I am glad to hear, as it is socially, having a reserve fund of some £600, while the subscriptions are very moderate. No doubt the political and industrial atmosphere is dark with heavy clouds both’ at home and abroad; but I do begin to think that this white lining of a truer and fuller blending of our people than has ever been known before in England, or anywhere else, is going to do more than compensate for whatever troubles may be in store for us from wars or other convulsions, and that we shall be in time to meet them as a united people.

Then let us pray that come it may--

As come it will for a’ that--

That man to man, the warld o’er,

Shall brithers be for a’ that.

The “Victoria,” New Cut.

Of all the healthy signs of real social progress in this remarkable age, I know of none more striking, or, I will add, more thankworthy in a small way, than the contrast of the present condition of the big People’s Theatre in Southwark with that which middle-aged men can remember. Probably many of my readers who in the fifties and sixties held it to be part of the whole duty of man to attend the University boat-race at Putney, or the Oxford and Cambridge match at Lord’s, will be able to call up in their memories the “Vic.” of those days. For my own part, I always felt that the big costermonger’s theatre suffered unfairly in reputation--as many folk and places before it have done--for the casual notice of a man of genius. “Give us the Charter,” Charles Kingsley makes his tailor-hero exclaim in 1848, “and we’ll send workmen into Parliament who shall find out whether something better can’t be put in the way of the boys and girls in London who live by theft and prostitution, than the tender mercies of the Victoria.” I do not pretend to anything more than a casual acquaintance with the “Vic.” in those days; but my memory would not bear out Parson Lot in denouncing it as “a licensed pit of darkness.”, That description would far better designate the Cider Cellars, the Coal Hole, and other fashionable resorts on the north side of the Thames, in which a working man’s fustian jacket and corduroys were never seen. I should say that one evening spent at Evans’s in those days, or at the mock Court (the judge and jury) presided over by Baron Nicholson, as that rotund old cynic was called, would have done any youngster far more harm than half a dozen at the “Vic.” At the one you might sit smoking cigars and drinking champagne, if you were fool enough, and hear everything that was sacred and decent slily or openly ridiculed and travestied, in the company of M.P.’s, barristers, and others, all well-dressed people. At the “Vic.” you could rub shoulders with costers and longshoremen, noisy, rowdy, and prone to fight on the slightest provocation, while the entertainment was more than coarse enough, but quite free from the subtle poison of a crim.-con. trial presided over by Baron Nicholson. With this saving, however, I am bound to admit that the old “Vic.” was not a place which could have been looked on without serious misgivings by any one in the remotest degree responsible for peace or decency in South London. The influence which it exercised, to put it mildly, though undoubtedly powerful, could by no possibility have had any elevating effect on the intellect or morals of any human being; but for all that, it was always a favourite place of resort, and had a strong hold on the dense population who earn a scanty and precarious living in the New Cut and the Old Kent Road. How it was that the lease of the old “Vic.,” with seventeen years still to run, came into the market some eight years back, I am not aware; but so it happened, and it was purchased by a financial Company, who, with the best intentions, embarked on the risky experiment of running the “Royal Victoria Hall,” as it was now called, as a coffee-tavern and place of entertainment, against the neighbouring music-halls in which drink was sold. In eight months the Company lost £2800, and the Victoria was closed, with every chance of drifting back, on the next change of ownership, into the old ruts. Happily for South London, a better fate was in store for the “Vic.,” for there were those who had eyes to see its value if properly handled, not, indeed, as a commercial speculation, but as a power for lifting the social life of the neighbourhood on to a higher level. A committee was formed, with the late Mr. Samuel Morley as chairman, and Miss Cons as honorary secretary and manager, a guarantee fund was raised, and the Hall reopened. It has been a hard fight; but with a chairman whose speech in the darkest hour rang, “We don’t mean to let this thing fall to the ground,” and a lady of unsurpassed experience and devotion amongst the poor, whose whole life was from the first freely and loyally given to the work, the field has been won. I say deliberately “won,” and if any one doubts my word, let him walk over Waterloo Bridge any evening (for the “Vic.” is always open), and look at this thing fairly; let him go into the coffee-tavern, the theatre, the big billiard and smoking-rooms, the reading and class-rooms at the top, and the gymnasium in the basement, and keep his ears and eyes wide open all the time,--and then go home and thank God that such work is going on in the very quarter of our huge city in which the need is sorest. I say, let him go any evening, but for choice I would advise a Tuesday, for on Tuesdays the “Penny Science Lectures” are given, which are, of course, less popular than the variety entertainments and the ballad concerts which occur whenever the funds allow, or some first-rate artist, such as Sims Beeves, volunteers to come and sing to the Hew Cut. To return to the “Penny Science Lectures,” the wonder is, not that eminent men should be ready to go over to Southwark and give them without payment--that note of our day has become too common to surprise--but that an average of over five hundred, mostly of the _gamin_ age, from the Hew Cut, should be ready to pay their penny and come, and listen, and appreciate.

It was on May Day that I visited the old “Vic.,” almost by chance, and without a notion of what I was likely to see or hear. The lecture was on “The Foundation-Stones of London,” and proved to be a geological, not an archæological one. Mr. H. Kimber, M.P. for the neighbouring division of South London, was in the chair, and the lecturer was Professor Judd, F.R.S., who, in a clear, terse address, aided by excellent dissolving views projected by limelight on the huge drop-scene of the stage, showed the gravel, clay, chalk, and lower strata, with the fossils found in each, with admirable clearness. The big theatre was not, of course, full, but there was a large audience, quite up to the average of upwards of five hundred, and any one at all used to such scenes could see how keenly interested they were, and how quick to seize the lecturer’s points. Most of the men were in their working clothes, but clean and brushed up, and no lecturer could have wished for a better audience. The only thing that brought back to my mind the slightest remembrance of the old “Vic.” was, that by a coster in the centre of the front row of the pit sat a big brindled bull-terrier of the true fighting type. Strange to say, he remained looking at the views with perfect gravity till the lecturer made his bow, when he jumped quietly down at once, and trotted about the pit to find friends, as though he had learned all he could, and wanted to talk it over with pals, but was not interested in the formal vote-of-thanks business. On the three following Tuesdays, as the bills informed me, “The Moon,” “The Circulation of the Blood,” and “The Backbone of England,” were the subjects, all, again, illustrated by dissolving views. And these lectures are kept up on every Tuesday, such speakers as the Dean of Westminster, Sir John Lubbock, Professor Seeley, taking their turn with the purely scientific men, and drawing as good attendances.

You must find room for one specimen of the quick humour of this New Cut audience. Dr. Carpenter, in one of his experiments, dispensed with a prism, explaining to his audience that the objects would now appear inverted, and they must “put them right way up” in their minds,--“or stand on yer ’eds,” came the prompt suggestion from the gallery. Out of these lectures science-classes have grown in the last three years, encouraged by a committee, selected from the Council, of some hundred ladies and gentlemen. Of these I have no space to speak; but one fact will indicate the thoroughness of the work done at them. Dr. Fleming’s report for 1887 tells us that out of forty students who went in for examination in the several classes, seven obtained first-class, and eighteen second-class certificates. I have only touched on what, after all, is an outgrowth, which has developed naturally from the original scheme, but was no part of it. This was rational and hearty and clean amusement. The Council were determined to test whether an answer could not be found to the straight question of “Poor Potlover” in Punch:--

“Where’s this cheap and respectable fun

To be spotted by me? There’s the kink!

Don’t drink? All serene, if you’ll p’int me to summat that’s better

than drink.

To that “summat” the Victoria Hall Council, all honour to them, have pointed with quite encouraging success. There is no department of the Hall which is not in a healthy condition, and the fact that £1800 was taken in pennies and twopences for admissions during 1887, though the Hall was closed in the summer for repairs, may well encourage the Council and their devoted manager to take courage and persevere in their present effort to purchase the freehold as a fitting memorial to Mr. Samuel Morley. There was no part of his wide work of philanthropy which that fine old English merchant valued more than this. He supported it lavishly during his life, and had he lived till the freehold came into the market, there would have been little difficulty in raising the necessary sum, £17,000. Of this, £3500 has already been promised by members of the Council, and I cannot believe that the opportunity will be allowed to slip, and the deposit-money of £500 already paid to be forfeited. It seems that the Charity Commissioners have let it be known that the old “Vic.” will be accepted by them as one of the People’s Palaces for South London, if the freehold can only be obtained; and I cannot for a moment doubt that this will be done if the facts are only fairly known. The teetotalers ought to do all that remains to be done, in gratitude for the best story in their quiver, which they owe to the “Vic.” A short meeting is held, called the “Temperance Hour,” _outside_ the house on Friday nights, at which working men are the speakers. One of them, a carter, stuck fast at the bottom of a hill in the suburbs one day. Another man who was passing, unhitched his own team and helped him up. On an offer to pay being made, the good Samaritan declared he had been paid beforehand. “Why, I never saw you before in my life, did I?” “I’ve seen you, though,” said the other; “I heard you speak one night outside the ‘Vic.’ and I went in and took the pledge--me and my family has been happy ever since!”

Whitby and the Herring Trade, 30th August 1888.

Any fresh herrings for breakfast, sir? Four a penny this morning, sir!” Such was my greeting this day, as I turned out of my lodgings for an early lungs’-full of this inspiring air. I had almost broken out on that fish-wife with, “Why, you abominable old woman, you asked me twopence for three yesterday”; but restraining my natural, if not righteous indignation, I replied meekly, “Four a penny! Why, what makes them so cheap, ma’am?”

“T’ boats all full--ha’n’t had sech a catch this summer,” which news gladdened me almost as much as if the catch had been my own. No one can watch these grand fellows, the Dogger Bank fishermen, and not feel, a sort of blood-relationship to them, and the keenest sympathy with their heroic business on the great waters. So, thinks I, I’ll go down to the quay directly after breakfast, and see them all at their best, those hard-handed, big-bearded, soft-hearted sea-kings from all the East and South Coast towns of England, from Sunderland to Penzance. When they are such grand, silent, kindly creatures on every day in the week, even when the catch has been poor and light, what will they be to-day?