Pickwickian Manners and Custom | Page 2

one still lingers on in Holborn), are there, at which travellers put up: there were then nearly a dozen, in the Borough and elsewhere. There are no coaches on the great roads, no guards and bulky drivers; no gigs with hoods, called "cabs," with the driver's seat next his fare; no "hackney coaches," no "Hampstead stages," no "Stanhopes" or "guillotined cabriolets"--whatever they were--or "mail- carts," the "pwettiest thing" driven by gentlemen. And there are no "sedan chairs" to take Mrs. Dowler home. There are no "poke" or "coal- scuttle" bonnets, such as the Miss Wardles wore; no knee-breeches and gaiters; no "tights," with silk stockings and pumps for evening wear; no big low-crowned hats, no striped vests for valets, and, above all, no gorgeous "uniforms," light blue, crimson, and gold, or "orange plush," such as were worn by the Bath gentlemen's gentlemen. "Thunder and lightning" shirt buttons, "mosaic studs"--whatever they were--are things of the past. They are all gone. Gone too is "half-price" at the theatres. At Bath, the "White Hart" has disappeared with its waiters dressed so peculiarly--"like Westminster boys." We have no serjeants now like Buzfuz or Snubbin: their Inn is abolished, and so are all the smaller Inns--Clement's or Clifford's--where the queer client lived. Neither are valentines in high fashion. Chatham Dockyard, with its hierarchy, "the Clubbers," and the rest, has been closed. No one now gives dejeunes, not dejeuners; or "public breakfasts," such as the authoress of the "Expiring Frog" gave. The "delegates" have been suppressed, and Doctors' Commons itself is levelled to the ground. The "Fox under the Hill" has given place to a great hotel. The old familiar "White Horse Cellars" has been rebuilt, made into shops and a restaurant. There are no "street keepers" now, but the London Police. The Eatanswill Gazette and its scurrilities are not tolerated. Special constables are rarely heard of, and appear only to be laughed at: their staves, tipped with a brass crown, are sold as curios. Turnpikes, which are found largely in "Pickwick," have been suppressed. The abuses of protracted litigation in Chancery and other Courts have been reformed. No papers are "filed at the Temple"--whatever that meant. The Pound, as an incident of village correction has, all but a few, disappeared.
Then for the professional classes, which are described in the chronicle with such graphic power and vivacity. As at this time "Boz" drew the essential elements of character instead of the more superficial ones--his later practice--there is not much change to be noted. We have the medical life exhibited by Bob Sawyer and his friends; the legal world in Court and chambers--judges, counsel, and solicitors--are all much as they are now. Sir Frank Lockwood has found this subject large enough for treatment in his little volume, "The Law and Lawyers of Pickwick." It may be thought that no judge of the pattern of Stareleigh could be found now, but we could name recent performances in which incidents such as, "Is your name Nathaniel Daniel or Daniel Nathaniel?" have been repeated. Neither has the blustering of Buzfuz or his sophistical plaintiveness wholly gone by. The "cloth" was represented by the powerful but revolting sketch of Stiggins, which, it is strange, was not resented by the Dissenters of the day, and also by a more worthy specimen in the person of the clergyman at Dingley Dell. There are the mail-coach drivers, with the "ostlers, boots, countrymen, gamekeepers, peasants, and others," as they have it in the play-bills. Truly admirable, and excelling the rest, are "Boz's" sketches--actually "living pictures"--of the fashionable footmen at Bath, beside which the strokes in that diverting piece "High Life below Stairs" seem almost flat. The simperings of these gentry, their airs and conceit, we may be sure, obtain now. Once coming out of a Theatre, at some fashionable performance, through a long lane of tall menials, one fussy aristocrat pushed one of them out of his way. The menial contemptuously pushed him back. The other in a rage said, "How dare you? Don't you know, I'm the Earl of ---" "Well," said the other coldly, "If you be a Hearl, can't you be'ave as sich?"
After the wedding at Manor Farm we find that bride and bridegroom did not set off from the house on a wedding tour, but remained for the night. This seemed to be the custom. Kissing, too, on the Pickwickian principles, would not now, to such an extent, be tolerated. There is an enormous amount in the story. The amorous Tupman had scarcely entered the hall of a strange house when he began osculatory attempts on the lips of one of the maids; and when Mr. Pickwick and his friends called on Mr. Winkle, sen., at Birmingham, Bob Sawyer made similar playful efforts--being called an "odous creetur" by the lady. In