112 PROFESSIONAL CLASSES. [1737-1783. conduct; and after the first year, I shook off in great measure my connection with them." He got into better society; he lived much among the Fellows of the College. "But those," he complains, " with whom I was intimate, did not act towards me the part of Christians, or even of honest men. Their object seemed to be, to make and keep me idle. If ever I appeared studious they would say to me,' Why in the world should a man of your fortune trouble himself with fagging?'"* Wilberforce was one of the few who could "escape contagion, and emerge pure from so foul a pool." It would be absurd to imagine that the professional class, and the trading class, were untainted amidst the corruptions of the time. "Profusion unrestrained" producing unmitigated selfishness, was not likely to decrease, during half a century of very rapidly increasing wealth, amongst those who had a more than common share of the national advantages. Public servants were as rapacious in 1783, as when, forty years before, Smollett carried his qualification for a surgeon's mate to the Navy Office, and found that he had not the slightest chance of an appointment, "without a present to the Secretary, with whom some of the Commissioners went snacks." It was the system of corruption which gave the charge of a man-of-war to the brutal captain Oakum, who declared with terrible oaths that there should be no sick in his ship, while he had the command; and which chose for his successor, captain Whiffle, who came on board in a coat of pink-coloured silk, lined with white; his hair flowing upon his shoulders in ringlets; his blue meroquin shoes studded with diamond buckles-Whiffle, who languished on a sofa, his head supported by his valet-de-chambre, who from time to time applied a smelling-bottle to his nose. Such were the vermin of the navy, till Rodney taught even fribbles to fight, and Collingwood showed bullies how gentle manners and tenderness of heart could be combined with the most heroic courage. The Weazels and other reptiles of the army were gradually exchanged for such as went from the ball-room at Brussels to fight in silk stockings. Young men of fashion drank deep and swore hard; but if they saw service, and they had ample opportunities in Chatham's day, they might have some sense of religion upon the principle laid down by corporal Trim, that when a soldier "is fighting for his king, and for his own life and his honour too, he has the most reason to pray to God of any one in the whole world." § The Medical Profession was so distracted by jealousies and rivalries between its different ranks, and between individuals of the same rank, that, from Garth to Foote, the satirists have always a joke ready for the physician's pomp and the apothecary's rapacity. The Law was necessarily open to the ridicule which properly attached to the inflated harangues and absurd technicalities of the Courts" injunctions, demurrers, sham-pleas, writs of error, rejoinders, sur-rejoinders, rebutters, sur-rebutters, replications, exceptions, essoigns, and imparlance." || Quackery was keeping pace with the progress of luxury. Litigation was encouraged by the multiplication of statutes, and by the general ignorance even of the educated, of "Life of Wilberforce," vol. i. p. 10. "Roderick Random," chap. xviii. § "Tristram Shandy." 1737-1783.] THE MERCANTILE CLASS. 113 the laws and constitution of their own country, "a species of knowledge in which the gentlemen of England have been more remarkably deficient than those of all Europe besides." * The members of the Mercantile Class were, in London especially, accumulating wealth, and losing respectability. The citizen of the beginning of the century had become a hybrid of fashion before its close. After George III. had been ten years on the throne the traders began to desert the city. The capacious mansion in the narrow street was given up for the inconvenient house in the new-built square. It is curious to mark the changes in the fashionable estimate of locality. The citizen of ninety years ago is reproached for "the petty vanity of residing in the circle of fashion; to have descended from the first in the neighbourhood of the Exchange to be the last in Bloomsbury square." The Essayist asks a question, which has not yet been more satisfactorily answered than he answers it :-" When the rich and respectable leave it, who are to fill its magistracies and its council? The lower orders of tradesmen, destitute of education and of liberal views, and thrust forward into office by nothing but their own pragmatical activity." The city had its evil reputation for gluttony and ignorance, which might be some excuse for the men of refinement and education deserting it. Dr. Campbell is taken to dine with a citizen. He says, "I'll do so no more, for there is no entertainment but meat and drink with that class of people." When Johnson was told that the society of Twickenham chiefly consisted of opulent traders, retired from business, he declared that he never much liked that class of people; "for, sir, they have lost the civility of tradesmen, without acquiring the manners of gentlemen." § Johnson's contempt of trade was one of his prejudices. Boswell asked, “What is the reason we are angry at a trader's having opulence?" The answer was, "the reason is, we see no qualities in trade that should entitle a man to superiority." Reasonable men have ceased to be angry at a trader's having opulence, provided his wealth has proceeded from the true qualities of a tradesman, honesty, skill, perseverance, decision of character-qualities that in any position" should entitle a man to superiority." It is the pretence to be what they are not that has always made the traders ridiculous. Mr Zachary Fungus learning to dance, and practising fencing, and keeping his riding-master waiting while he recites the speech which he has learnt from Mr. Gruel," the great orationer who has published a book," by which Fungus hopes to rise in the state; -this is the citizen to be despised, whether he be exhibited by Mr. Foote, or be labelled as "a snob" by a greater humorist. Fielding, in "The Covent Garden Journal," has an amusing paper on the power of "the fourth estate," by which he means "the mob." Their insolence to passengers on the river, "whose dress entitles them to be of a different order from themselves;" their rudeness on the footpaths of the streets; the habits of carters and draymen "to exclude the other estates from the use of the common highways;" their abuse of women of fashion in the Parks of a Sunday evening-these are the crimes which an acute observer lays to their charge. To the justice of peace and the soldier, * Blackstone, section i. + Knox-Essay 8. "Diary," p. 75. § Maxwell's "Collectanea," in Boswell. Foote "The Commissary," act ii. VOL. VIL 1 111 THE LOWER ORDERS. [1737-1783. whom they hold in awe, he considers that it is "entirely owing that they have not long since rooted all the other orders out of the commonwealth." * Foreigners agree in this species of censure. M. Grosley says that the porters, sailors, chairmen, and day-labourers who work in the streets, "are as insolent a rabble as can be met with in countries without law or police." Their rudeness to foreigners he especially dwells upon; and he gives an example. His servant had followed the crowd to Tyburn, to see three men hanged. Returning home through 'Oxford-road, he was attacked by several blackguards; and Jack Ketch joined in the sport. But two or three grenadiers, belonging to the French guards, who had deserted, rescued their countryman. The man was frightened, and would not go out for a fortnight; but M. Grosley says that if he, being a stout fellow, had taken his coat off and boxed with the weakest among them, they would have carried him home in triumph. Grosley admits that the obliging readiness of the citizens and shopkeepers sufficiently consoles the foreigner for the insolence of the mob.t Nevertheless, he affirms that "even amongst those of the lowest rank, the people of London, though haughty and ungovernable, are in themselves good natured and humane." Opposed to the complaint of Fielding against the carters and draymen, the Frenchman maintains that their good nature appears in their great care to prevent the frays. almost unavoidable, amidst the eternal passing of carriages in narrow streets; and in their tender treatment of children, and persons low of stature, in ceremonies which attract a crowd. Moritz saw the proceedings at an election in Covent Garden: "What is called hanging-day arrived. There was also a parliamentary election. I could only see one of the two sights." There was no contest, and sir Cecil Wray was elected, to fill one vacant seat. "In the area before the hustings immense multitudes of people were assembled, of whom the greatest part seemed to be of the lowest order." The moment that the candidate began to speak, "even this rude rabble became all as quiet as the raging sea after a storm." Another gentleman spoke; and a gruff carter who stood near our foreigner exclaimed, " Upon my word that man speaks well." The enthusiasm of the Prussian is awakened; and it warms his heart to see "how in this happy country, the lowest and meanest member of society thus unequivocally testifies the interest which he takes in everything of a public nature, how high and low, rich and poor, concur in declaring their feelings. and their convictions that a carter, a common tar, or a scavenger, is still a man and an Englishman, and as such has his rights and privileges defined and known as exactly and as well as his king and his king's ministers." § Moritz, who was familiar with our literature, had probably the fine lines of Goldsmith in his mind: "Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, True to imagined right above controul, While even the peasant boasts these rights to scan, And learns to venerate himself as man." It must not be forgotten when we speak of the licentiousness of the lower orders in the period of which we are writing, that they were constantly *No. 40, June 20, 1752. +"Observations on England," vol. i. p. 84. ‡ lbid., p. 63. 1737 1783.] THE RABBLE-MOBS. 115 stimulated by demagogues to abuse the liberty of which they were proud; that whatever was brutal in their nature was not softened by any care for their education; that the police of London was utterly inefficient; and that the frequency of executions would have rendered them blood-thirsty, if, with all their curiosity to see men hanged (which low taste they partook in common with George Selwyn and others of rank), they had not had essentially a greater respect for human life than any other people in the world. A writer, who presents us many vivid but rather vague generalizations on the manners of that time, says, "The rabble of London, though to this day the most brutal and odious rabble in Europe, were never sanguinary." This is somewhat hard upon the rabble of London, if we consider that they have not the advantage of those lessons of politeness enjoyed by every other rabble in Europe that they are not tamed by a soldiery always ready to shoot them down without magistrate or riot act. "The English rabble," continues this historian, "are chiefly remarkable for mischief and cowardice. They destroy property, but they rarely attempt life." One who had a very considerable experience in the political power of mobs, was anxious that what he considered their courage should be kept alive by the humanizing lessons of the gallows. Romilly describes a dinner in 1785, at which he was present with John Wilkes and Mirabeau: "The conversation turned upon the English criminal law, its severity, and the frequency of public executions. Wilkes defended the system with much wit and good humour, but with very bad arguments. He thought that the happiest results followed from the severities of our penal law. It accustomed men to a contempt of death, though it never held out to them any cruel spectacle; and he thought that much of the courage of Englishmen, and of their humanity too, might be traced to the nature of our capital punishments, and to their being so often exhibited to the people." † When the system came to an end, under which ninety-seven malefactors were executed in London in one year, and twenty were hanged on one morning, did the "cowardice" increase; so that "a file of soldiers will, at any time, disperse the most formidable crowd; and a few resolute individuals, armed with bludgeons, can generally beat them off." The admirable metropolitan police of the present day has prevented any frequent opportunities of analyzing the composition of the qualities of the London rabble. Mischievous boys are generally more conspicuous than brutal men. The chairmen are gone, and so are the street porters. That large class who stand behind carriages in plush breeches and silk stockings, are no longer the most turbulent in the theatres; no longer have private riots of their own, of a character quite as formidable as those of the denizens of St. Giles's. A singular state of manners is presented in the following record of a scene which took place on the 11th of May, 1764. "A great disturbance was created at Ranelagh-house, by the coachmen, footmen, &c., belonging to such of the nobility and gentry as will not suffer their servants to take vails. They began by hissing their masters; they then broke all the lamps and outside windows with stones; and afterwards, putting out their Massey-History during reign of George III.," vol. ii. p. 85. 116 POLICE OF LONDON. [1737-1783. flambeaux, pelted the company in a most audacious manner with brickbats, whereby several were greatly hurt, so as to render the use of swords necessary."* Can we have better evidence of the disorder of all society, in which the valet emulated the indecorum of his master, and the drunken mechanic copied the drunken lord. The Police of London in the last ten years of George II., and through the remaining years of the century, was a system that combined the hateful and the ridiculous to an extent that requires some strong power of relying upon evidence to believe in. The character of the watchman may be found in every novel. A sober traveller sums up the qualifications of these protectors of life and property: "London has neither troops, patrols, nor any sort of regular watch; and it is guarded during the night only by old men. chosen from the dregs of the people, who have no other arms but a lanthorn and a pole; who patrole the streets, crying the hour every time the clock strikes; who proclaim good or bad weather in the morning; who come to awake those who have any journey to perform; and whom it is customary with young rakes to beat and use ill, when they come rioting from the taverns where they have spent the night." + A curious example of the influence of routine upon public functionaries is given by Wraxall. He went out amidst the mob on the worst night of the riots of 1780, whilst the premises of Mr. Langdale, the distiller, were burning on Holborn Hill, and a frantic mob was raging in the street. "While we stood by the wall of St. Andrew's churchyard, a watchman, with his lanthorn in his hand, passed us, calling the hour as if in a time of profound tranquillity." ‡ The police-officer of that day was called a "thief-taker," he was in no sense of the word a detective or a preventive functionary. He knew the thieves, * "Annual Register," vol. vii. |