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And with echoes loud, the doors were closed, and Baptiste "It is the soul yet lingers-and Celestine liveth still!" was alone.

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A PEEP INTO UPPER BOHEMIA.

THERE is a district which is not marked out in any of the maps, although it lies within easy reach of the geographers. Its inhabitants and characteristics are worthy of their attention, nevertheless. I do not allude now to Bohemia Proper, nor even to the Bohemia in the delineation of which Mr. Mayhew and other gentlemen have attained celebrity. These are very interesting, no doubt, but Upper Bohemia, that region in the heart of London lying just above the district named-socially, of course-is in no less degree deserving of careful study.

It may be humiliating to confess it; but my information respecting the region in question is derived from a personal residence within its boundaries. The "anonymous"-precious attribute of British authorship-certainly saves one much of the pain he would otherwise feel in making the avowal. And, after all, there is nothing so very disgraceful in the matter. The stern necessity which placed Oliver Goldsmith in the position to which he afterwards referred as- "When I was lodging amongst the beggars in St. Mary Axe," may surely overtake a much smaller man, even in these days of enterprising publishers. It was while actually residing in Bohemia Upper that the idea first occurred to me of explaining its characteristics. This is all my preface, and my only request to the reader is to bear in mind that I desscribe facts and facts alone.

Where the crowbar and pick-axe of the street improver has relentlessly demolished whole streets and courts, over crowded with inhabitants, leaving blank vistas in foggy nights, through which the gas lamps in ghastly desperation gleam lonesomely, and which are shunned by timid gentlemen returning from the city; where silk handkerchiefs hang from door-posts and hooks artistically arranged along the shop fronts; where there are suspicious-looking courtways, up which experienced policemen glance with sinister eye, repeatedly; where little boys may be seen smoking at any hour of the day, without the slightest make-believe of secresy; where dealers in cast-off garments, and traders in all manner of out-of-the-v e-way articles, abound-within the "liberties" adjoining the City of London Proper-I obtained my first glimpse of Bohemian life, my first insight into Bohemian manuers. Almost immediately, I discovered that this was not the Bohemia so graphically described by the gentlemen to whom I just now alluded. The people were not their people. I had not descended deep enough for that; but I had no desire to go any farther down. My 'fellow lodgers" were not professional beggars; certainly not thieves although for the first day or two during which I was condemned to their companionship, I felt as if the atmosphere itself was redolent of ticket-ofleaveism. They were for the most part men who had seen better days, as could easily be gleaned from their conversation-and, making allowance for

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their want of position, from their manners. They were men who, in one way or another, were able, and barely able, to scrape together as much daily as sufficed to preserve life; and they moved in a circle within which all reference to their present pursuits was tacitly but most religiously tabooed.

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There was "Jack the Singer," as he was familiarly designated in our kitchen. He had, beyond doubt, been a respectable man. It was he, indeed, who first afforded me an insight into the working of the establishment in which we both for the time located. He did so one morning, after the occupants of the sleeping apartment which we both used, had got up for the day. He had himself been a book-keeper to a large firm in the city. It went down, and he was thrown out of employment. Every day made things worse than they were on the previous day; and poverty

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not an unusual circumstance-brought discontent into his household. His wife (he is still under thirty) and he separated; he took delusive refuge in dissipation, and found himself one day a lodger in that same building, foodless and moneyless. For two successive nights he walked about the streets in the most wretched condition; and finally so far mastered pride and prejudice as to seek a trifle by singing in the public houses. A miserable livelihood, forsooth. Frequently, even now," he assured me, "I am obliged to take the streets for a night; and although on Fridays and Saturdays I do pretty well, during the remainder of the week I experience great difficulty in procuring a mouthful of food." I was enabled from my own observation, to judge that such was literally the case. I saw that the system of "going out for the night," as it was called, was practised to a great extent by the inmates. The plan was to leave the house at the hour at which it was supposed to shut up for the night-two o'clockand to return when it is supposed to open, namely, six in the morning. "There are only four hours to kill," was a not unusual remark among those whose circumstances compelled them to go out at that point when the most tedious sitter-up of those within doors retired to bed. The same person was not in charge of the house when they went out and when they returned back; so that the "deputies," as they were called, were supposed not to know that such a practice was in existence. But the owner of the establishment knew all about it, for all that. If you had entered the kitchen at a sufficiently early hour, you might perceive any morning in the week about half a dozen drop in stealthily, with marks of fatigne and hardship upon their dress and persons-with traces of sleepless watching about their eyes, with damp muddy foot-gear, and other signs of having travelled during the dreary night through the wilderness of houses-and take their places as near the fire as possible. In a minute or two they were fast

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asleep; and thus slumbering, nodding over the fire, and, if any could be procured, cooking the smallest quantity of food which the retailer next door would sell, the day passed over listlessly and unprofitably. Evening brought with it the necessity for some desperate attempt at procuring means to secure shelter for the night-two nights in succession, especially in winter, being regarded as over much for endurance. Some, however, had been known only to use a bed twice in the course of an entire week; and in that same tenement dozens, perhaps hundreds, had clung to this miserable make-shift existence until a brief week or fortnight before they were relieved by death from all anxiety as to food or shelter; in the nearest hospital.

There was "Bill Velveteen"-so called from his wearing, and, I do believe, always having worn, a sort of coat or jacket of that material. He had lodged, they assured me, upon the premises for three and twenty years. Formerly he had been attached in some capacity to one of the principal theatres. Latterly, during the summer months, he employed himself attending the country fairs with a gambling apparatus, of the nature and operation of which I am unacquainted. He wore high-lows, extensively turned up at the toes, which were always in good condition, was rather asthmatical and self-opinionative-not without a talent for slyly "taking down" any great talker who happened to be making too free in his presence with the first person singular. No one in the house had any notion how he lived in winter. One thing was quite clear-he was enabled to scrape together as much as paid his lodging nightly, or he would not have been there.

There was "Jumper" and "Shakspeare," two theatrical gentlemen attached to the "gaffs" on the Surrey side, who managed to reach home about midnight, and who, if one might judge from their style of living, just now, were not in receipt of extravagant salaries. One of them--but he was not the most prudent man in the world-has been under the necessity to tramp it occasionally of a night.

There was a tailor in the corner of the kitchen, which he had occupied for months-a purchaser of old garments, which he converted into new vests for the slop-shops, and who was to be found in the same spot working away every day in the week (Sunday included) with the utmost regularity. He seemed particularly averse to going out of doors, from which circumstance, and other trifles, I drew the inference-perhaps rashly-that he was one of those for whom their better balves made ceaseless but profitless inquiries of the "deputy" in charge of the door.

There was Brown, the jeweller, another lodger of twenty years' standing. He might, as they said, be in receipt of handsome wages; but one week at work was sufficient to put him "out of a job" for many succeeding ones. He fancied-he was usually something more than half intoxicated

that the palm of snperior has-been respectability was accorded to him by the general consent of the inmates, and he would tell long stories about his having met and conversed with highly influential parties during his daily walks abroad, which very few listened to, and nobody believed.

There was a gentleman who rejoiced in a moustache, and was supposed to be a penny-a-liner for the journals. He commenced his stories with the re nark-When I was sub-editor of a country newspaper," and proceeded to the relation of incidents incredible.

We had "Bob the groom," who was not a groom at all-but a waiter at a public house, from which he had been dismissed for an over attachment to its commodities, and who went forth nightly to pick up strangers arriving by the late trains, and needing cabs or guidance. He affected a kind of silliness in manner and conversation; nevertheless, he had the reputation of being as thoroughly "wide awake" as any one in the building-no small compliment to his sagacity.

We had two brothers, mysterious personages, who were for some time a downright puzzle to me. One or the other sat in that kitchen from morning till night, without ostensible employment of any description. They went forth one at a time and rarely. My curiosity led me to make some inquiry as to their occupation. I was informed, in a half whisper and strict confidence, that they belonged to a class of persons scattered through the lodging-houses of the great metropolis, and who find a living by hunting up information for the detective police. They were both men in the prime of life, and seemed to divide the toil and spoil equally with almost as much cordiality as the Brothers Cheeryble. They both dressed in a somewhat seedy black, and were at pains to preserve a shabby gentility in appearance.

Wilson, who worked in the city, returned usually in time to cook his supper before midnight, and take part in the conversation. His normal state was one neither of intoxication nor sobriety. His wages were supposed to be about twenty-four shillings weekly, and no one ever saw good shoes on his feet. Even the luxury of butchers' meat on Sundays he could not always afford. Every one (in our kitchen) said that he deserved something better and more respectable than his present post, but nobody saw any chance of his habits not continuing to stand in the way of his deserts. Old Campbell, the Scotchman, had travelled over the greater part of Europe and America. He was an engineer by trade; but now had obtained work at a cutlery establishment at the west end. He got in at first as a labourer, but his skill was speedily noticed and turned to account. remarkably precise in his movements, crotchetty in his habits, and regular in his hours. Disliking the trouble of joining in the squabble for cooking utensils on Sundays, he rose early on that day, and dined about ten o'clock in the forenoon. The incident was characteristic of the man-retiring,

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POLITICS OF UPPER BOHEMIA.

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Besides, there were Barney," whose name was not Barney, a hay carter; "Betsey," a gentleman bred, as I could gather with ease from his deportment, whose business out of doors nobody knew, or could even guess the name having been, doubtless, conferred as a compliment to the superiority of his manners.

What appeared to me not in the least degree strange was the unanimity with which all of these would assure me separately that his particular stay was at first intended not to exceed a day or two; yet weeks and months and years have rolled on without working a change in their condition; and they have seen many who entered the building with similar notions to their own, removed in the meantime out of this more extensive lodging house-the world-altogether. One young man has told me this with an ominous shake of the head, which impressed me so much that, the next time I heard the pullied door clang after me as I entered the house, the phrase nulla vestigia retrorsum involuntarily occurred to me.

"Our Kitchen" deserves a word or two for itself. There were two such apartments, and each lodger, as he entered, chose one or the other of these, which he used for culinary or loitering purposes to prepare food or kill time. With No. 2, and its internal arrangements, I was, up to my farewell to Upper Bohemia, unacquainted. Ours was a rather spacious room on the ground floor, flagged, had a large table, upon which the various processes of preparing breakfast or dinner, as the case might be, ironing clothes, and resting the weary heads of the inmates, went on simulta neously. There were "lockers" provided for the lodgers, in which each put away his food; and that a great number of these were required will be understood when it is considered that the house altogether professed to find accommodation for one hundred and fifty people. I had, formerly, passed the door repeatedly, without even a suspicion that such an establishment existed there; and the systematic silence observed by the inmates as to their former connexions, and to casual acquaintances as to their whereabouts, contributed to secure its comparative privacy. There were no females admitted. Some of the old hands had a tradition about two of the fair sex having come into the larger kitchen one afternoon, years since, aud, mistaking it for a coffee shop, demanding some refreshment-together with the amusement to which the incident in question gave rise. I do believe that there are people in the house who have laughed with daily regularity, since the mistake occurred, at a recital of the circumstance, and who have laughed at nothing else. By a few this regulation was regarded in the light of an advantage. "If they come asking for a fellow," said one of them, in my hearing, "they never knows nothing about you at the door, and so they're sold." Another went so far as to inform

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me that there were among the inmates individuals whose deserted wives and children occupied rooms within a few hundred yards of the house, but who had never been able to make them out-owing to the convenient obstacles thrown in their way by the 'deputy" in charge of the door. There were three of those "deputies"-the owner, who was also the proprietor of an establishment similarly conducted in Westminster, merely coming in once a day to receive the money, and hear complaints. The speculation pays, beyond question; for while in the adjoining "chambers" conducted with more pretensions to respectability, rooms are often empty, the beds in this haunt are always occupied. The expense is the same in both cases; and the preference shown for the private lodging. house system is a point which "the Shaftesbury people"-as I heard one of the deputies contemptuously designate the advocates of Christian living among the poor-would do well to study. I can't guess it. One of the reasons may be that the Upper Bohemians have not yet arrived at the point when men become insensible to disgrace; and that the dread of expulsion for trifling irregularities, joined to delicacy arising from the indifferent style of their clothing, operates upon their minds so far as to induce their rejection of the superior advantages which regularly organised artisans' homes offer. Whatever be the cause, the fact exists, and Upper Bohemia is at this moment the most neglected region of English society.

In politics our kitchen was radical, but by no means republican. We listened with unaffected and undisguised pleasure to a spirited article. attacking abuses; but universal levelling found no favour amongst us. Neither did any observations betokening a disregard for the legal obligations under which we live, or the constituted authori ties. I confess that this circumstance rather astonished me. We certainly took no pains to hide our concurrence in the remarks offered by way of advice for retrenchment in all departments of the State, and our wish that while the toiler should be more lightly burthened, public affairs should be more wisely administered, as well as more economically. But the man who would venture in our kitchen a sweeping denunciation of all in power, or of all in receipt of salaries, would find among us little sympathy. Considering how closely the circumstances of many among us verged upon the desperate, the latter fact was in no small degree remarkable. One would suppose men who' feel so directly what the want of necessaries occasionally meant, would not be likely to draw nice distinctions in the matter of property and ownership. Yet, as far as words could be depended upon, or a notion formed from the dealings of our people among themselves, such an opinion would have been groundless.

Practically, there was no religion in our kitchen. Work went on during the whole day on Sundaysome pursued their usual avocations, as in the case of the tailor; others were engaged washing, mend

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ing, shoemaking, ironing, and other kindred employments. As in political sentiment, so in religious conformity, Upper Bohemia had no fixed standard; yet it was not wholly unchristianised. While in effect the religious obligations are ignored, the natives are not scoffers, still less atheistic. I have never heard an expression in the way of offered opinion touching religious matters while I was there which could with justice be set down as evidencing an infidel spirit. There is just enough of neglect upon matters religious to render an approach to serious controversy absurd; and there is a lingering angel in their midst that prevents, nevertheless, the possibility of their blooming into scoffers. Ministrations of no kind are sought amongst them, and the clergymen of the establishment are mentioned with the nearest approach to a shrug which any topic bordering on the affairs of the other world evokes.

There is a tacit agreement among them that the church is not exactly the thing for this age, in its present development; and that Popery is an extremely wicked institution. The only dissenter from this latter view was an Irishman, who used the larger kitchen, but who came out into ours occasionally. The slightest mention of the subject drove him up to the neck into quotations, and deplorably out of temper. For the fun of the thing an antagonist was occasionally found; but the rest of the people did not heed him. It was remarked by some with a certain show of reason, that the zeal of the Hibernian might be owing to the fact that he obtains "his living among them." He is himself a rather mysterious personage. Nobody in the house knows what his business is beyond that of a hawker. The nature of his wares is unknown; but the recently current belief is that they consist of blessed images, for which he finds a market among the Roman Catholic community.

Philosophy of a peculiar character our kitchen possesses. It is a strange compound in its way. It is made up of a listlessness, not without a dash of fatalism in it, and a selfishness that sinks everything-even a man's own future comfort-in the satisfaction of his immediate physical cravings. It is in the last point of view that this state of existence is most to be deplored. I have learned to believe that the precarious nature of the living obtained by the majority of those here is in itself sufficient to engraft upon a nature furnished with the best and most loveable of qualities the curse of selfishness. The little procured, barely sufficing from day to day, and not in sufficient quantity to bear dividing with another, at last comes to be regarded with a sort of jealous eye, as if all who were present wished to have it shared amongst them, and that they were, therefore, to some extent, one's enemy, seeking to deprive us of what is necessary to ourselves. In the district of Lower Bohemia,

this feeling leads men to attack and rob others equally indigent with themselves. I strongly doubt that such could ever come to be the case among the class of which our kitchen is a sample. But if circumstances should take them once more into a more respectable, and accordingly more responsible position, there can be no doubt that this poverty-engendered selfishness will accompany them. The recollection of days in which hardship was endured, so far from opening the heart to sympathising influences, will, I fear, operate in an opposite direction; and the dread of future want may hold back the hand which, before the ordeal was gone through, would willingly have been stretched forth to the assistance of another.

Shall I confess it? I almost regretted that circumstances favourable to my own prospects took me from a position where I was able to study character better than I ever did before. I made there the acquaintance of a class who, as a class at least, I was not aware had an existence previously. I have seen the Upper Bohemians at home; and I feel a strong interest in them. I have seen stricter honour brought into play among them than often characterises the dealings of the snobs of the commercial und fashionable worlds. I have not seen much of dissipation, when we consider the strong temptation to indulgence thrown in their way by the hard necessities of their sta tion, the barren recollection of days when they had a greater share of life's enjoyments within their reach, and an occasional opportunity to "be a man again," if only for an hour or two. If the social virtues stand little chance of prominent development in a condition where the physical wants are constantly pressing themselves into view, the great whirlpool of vice, into the very border of which these people are flung, has marvellously little power to draw them within its influence. To some of them I look hopelessly, though with much of interest. Their career appears to me to

be marked with deplorable distinctness. They are men well known each to a circle in London, but who may be said to have lost caste-that is to say, without any criminal stain upon their character, have incurred the penalty of charitable silence regarding them, on the part of those with whom they moved at one time in social converse. One has told another that So-and-so was done up, until the whole circle-and the only one in which So-and-so could reasonably look for sympathy and a helping hand becomes hardened into the belief that he is irretrievably unsuccessful. As success is the only test of talent and virtue admitted by the discerning British public of our day, a suspicion of irretrievable failure is the most damning of crimes. And so the moral dignity of manhood becomes swamped in merely material considerations, and the place of the victim of such suspicions is permanently fixed within the dreary and homeless precincts of Upper Bohemia.

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