Leading the Blind (35 page)

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.'

Going by the Great Western Railway, with Murray's handbook for
Wiltshire, Dorset & Somerset
, 1859, and the current
ABC Railway Guide
, we soon reach Swindon, ‘the great central establishment of the company, the engine depot capable of accommodating 100 engines. A number of mechanics are here employed, and of their skill a curious specimen was exhibited in Hyde Park, 1851; it was a working model of a pair of non-condensing steam-engines, which stood within the compass of a shilling, and weighed three drachms.' Murray also reminds us that the church gives character to the town, ‘and shows that this great railway company is not wholly absorbed in the worship of Mammon'.

Should the traveller break his journey and visit Laycock, he will read how the Talbots established their inheritance of the abbey. ‘The young daughter and heiress of Sir Henry Sherrington, being in love with John Talbot, contrary to her father's wishes, and discoursing one night with him from the battlements of the abbey church, said she, “I will leap down to you.” Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then: but he did not believe she would have done it. She leapt down, and the wind, which was then high, came under her coates, and did something break the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his arms, but she struck him dead; she cried for help, and he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father thereon told her that since she had made such a leap she would e'en marrie him.'

Going down to the Dorset coast, an interest in penal establishments will take us to Portland: ‘
Convict prison
, erected in 1848 (but to which strangers are admitted only at the dinner-hour, 11
A.M.
). It is a model building of the kind consisting of 8 wings, besides a hospital, chapel, barracks, and cottages for the warders. It accommodates a governor, deputy-governor, chaplain, 2 schoolmasters, and other officers, and about 1500 convicts, of whom the greater number are employed in quarrying stone for the breakwater. The arrangements are very perfect, the building is lighted with gas from its own gasometer, and abundantly supplied with both fresh and salt water, which are pumped into it by a steam-engine from reservoirs on the shore.'

Baddeley's guidebook of 1914 gives the number of inmates as seven hundred. ‘The charitable address, and always used by officials, is “The Grove, Portland”.' If we take a steep path we reach the plateau, ‘and are amidst the quarries. Away to the left is the
Prison
, which is best left alone; in fact, the sight of a horde of excursionists deeming it the correct thing to stand gazing and making remarks on the gangs of those who
have
been “found out” as they return from the Government quarries to dinner is unseemly and unkind.'

Murray, in his guide of 1887, says that Devonshire ‘has something to present to the curiosity of the traveller besides mere beauty and grandeur of scenery. It contains the greatest Naval and Military Arsenal combined, in the British Empire, planted on the shores of a harbour not to be surpassed for spaciousness, security, and scenic beauty. The sight of its docks, fitting yards, Steam factories, workshops, its palatial Barracks, gigantic Forts and Lines, gun wharfs bristling with rows of cannon, and, above all, the floating Armaments of iron and wooden war ships floating peacefully on the bosom of Hamoaze, combine to display to the fullest the power of Great Britain, and present alone a spectacle worth coming far to see.'

This refers, of course, to Plymouth and Devonport, and some indication is given of the hours of work: ‘The
Dockyard
(hours of admittance are the working hours of the yard: observing that the yard is closed from 12 to 1 in winter, and from 12 to ½ past 1 in summer, except on
Saturdays
, when the workmen remain at their work during the usual dinner-hour, and leave the yard at 3
P.M
. It is then closed altogether).'

The traveller in search of tranquillity may visit Widecombe in the Moor, but ‘the only resting place is a very poor village
Inn
. The place is interesting, however, because: ‘In Oct. 1638, during divine service, a terrible storm burst over the village, and, after some flashes of uncommon brilliancy, a ball of fire dashed through a window of the church into the midst of the congregation. At once the pews were overturned, 4 persons were lulled and 62 wounded, many by a pinnacle of the tower which tumbled through the roof, while “the stones,” says Prince, “were thrown down from the steeple as fast as if it had been by 100 men.” The country people accounted for this awful destruction by a wild tale that “the devil, dressed in black, and mounted on a black horse, inquired his way to the church of a woman who kept a little public-house on the moor. He offered her money to become his guide, but she distrusted him on remarking that the liquor went hissing down his throat, and finally had her suspicions confirmed by the glimpse of a cloven foot which he could not conceal by his boot.”'

Crossing Dartmoor, we are told that the annual cost of maintaining each inmate in the famous prison was nearly thirty-six pounds – something like two thousand pounds in today's money. A free man might try better accommodation at Clovelly, where the small inn will entertain him ‘with great hospitality (Inquiry as to rooms may be made by telegraph from Bideford). If it happens to be the autumn, he may regale at breakfast upon herrings which have been captured over night; for Clovelly is famed for its fishery.' Another place at which the traveller might put up, especially if he is a writer, is Babbacombe: ‘A few years ago this pretty village was one of those romantic seclusions which have rendered the coast of Devon such a favourite with the novelist.'

Proceeding still further west, and carrying in his pocket Baddeley's
Thorough Guide to Devon and Cornwall
, our traveller will no doubt take a look at the Scilly Isles, passing between the mainland and St Mary's (the legendary Land of Lyonnesse). When he gets there: ‘The men who pester tourists on their arrival at the new quay with cards, are quite capable. But among them are some more qualified than others, and some are merely boatmen in the intervals of cobbling or gardening.'

Should fog or a storm keep the traveller in the inn he can read of how an English fleet was wrecked on the rocks of the main island in 1701. S. Baring-Gould gives a good account in his book on Cornwall but, for the sake of brevity, I will refer to Baddeley.

When Admiral Shovel was sailing across the main on his way back to England, there was on board his ship a common seaman who kept for himself a reckoning of the vessel's course. This in itself was an unusual proceeding, very few sailors in those days possessing the necessary knowledge. The man declared that the ship's course would take her upon the rocks of Scilly, and this conclusion was brought to the knowledge of the officers. The unfortunate man was court-martialled on a charge of inciting to mutiny, and then and there convicted and sentenced to be hanged at the yard-arm. Before execution he asked, and got leave, to read aloud a portion of the Holy Scripture. The portion he chose was the 109th Psalm. It spoke of him who ‘remembered not to show mercy, but persecuted the poor and needy man, that he might even slay the broken in heart.' It invoked upon him, among many other woes, fewness of days, fatherless children, and a posterity cut off. In a few hours the reckoning of the unhappy man was proved to be correct: the vessel struck upon the Gilstone Rock, and was lost. The body of the admiral, still alive (it was whispered that he was murdered for the sake of a ring he wore by the tenant of Sallakey farm), was carried by the sea to Porthellick, and for a while rested on the spot of ground marked by that strip of sand, and ever since that time the grass has refused to grow there!

The conclusion by S. Baring-Gould is somewhat different: ‘The body of Sir Cloudesley Shovel was picked up by a soldier and his wife, who gave it a decent burial in the sand. It was afterwards conveyed to Westminster Abbey and laid there.'

Going out of Cornwall by railway, and then in a northeasterly direction through delectably bucolic counties, the traveller reaches the Black Country, the centre of which is Birmingham, the seat of the hardware, glass, gun, steel-pen and silver plate industries. ‘A visit to the principal manufacturing establishments, and excursions in the neighbourhood of the town, are the sole attractions for the tourist,' Murray says.

Taking the train towards Crewe we read: ‘Gliding out of the magnificent central station and passing through the tunnel, the traveller emerges at once amongst the blackened chimneys and smutty atmosphere of manufacturing Birmingham. This is abundantly evident, not only from the physical signs of labour, but from the dense population accumulated on either side of the line, the frequent stations, and the general character of the passengers – the first class being occupied by business men, who leap in and out as though to save every moment of time, while the third are filled with grimy-faced artizans.'

After nine miles the town of Tipton, with a population of 30,000, is ‘spread over a circular area about 2m. in diameter, with coal-pits, iron-works, and dwellings, all mixed up together. In fact every inch of available ground is covered with furnaces, Tipton being celebrated for its iron as adapted for heavy works. It possesses a specialty for chain, cables, and anchors; and steam-engine boilers are also largely manufactured.'

Should the traveller decide to explore Shropshire and Cheshire he will note Mr Murray's difficulties in compiling the handbook to those counties. ‘A list of a few good Hotels and Inns above the average is subjoined by way of help to the traveller and stimulus to hostelries below par. It is better in Shropshire, though there is still room for improvement; but in both counties it would be a proof of courtesy in the owners of “show places” and “historic houses,” which they are duly desirous to find mentioned in Country Handbooks such as “Murray's,” if they would make known at the chief Hotels and leading bookseller's shops of their nearest town, whether, when, and after what preliminary steps, visitors, presenting their cards, can be admitted. In one or two instances the Editor has been subjected to discourtesy, though it was the exception, not the rule.'