Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

appeared dumb to all intents and purposes, and was perhaps deaf. It was evidently of no use either asking questions for information, or hurling verbal defiances, even in the purest monkey idiom. Interloper merely did the pantomime, but he did it so well that Jerry's courage began to get shakey. At length a brilliant thought struck him. He peeped behind the glass. Interloper had vanished. He looked in front again. There he was, as prying and curious as ever. Vague notions of ghosts, spectres, and phantoms, for the first time shook the heart of the gallant Jerry. He tried rapidity of action; he gazed alternately at the back and front of the mirror, and ran his finger as quickly as he was able, after the fleeting shadow; but still even his active paw failed to touch a substantial brother ape. At length, utterly bewildered and terrified, he hurled the glass into the street, which of course was smashed into ten thousand pieces-a species of exorcism that instantly dissolved the spell. But the avenger, in the shape of the fair proprietor of the unfortunate toilette requisites, was on him a couple of minutes afterwards with a horsewhip. One cut, however, was sufficient for Mr. Jerry. He, with due discretion, beat a retreat instantly; and, as a more cleanly route did not present itself to him at the moment, he despised not the security offered by the sooty vault of the bed-room chimney. But neither his troubles nor the troubles of the serving maids and maiden ladies of that establishment, were brought to an end so summarily as Jeremiah anticipated. Hester Ladyman was the younger of two sisters. The elder had been 'jilted' by a very handsome officer in the blues, or greens, I forget which. The younger, on the contrary, had 'jilted' some half-dozen suitors in turn, and, consequently, at the age of fifty-nine, found herself in the pleasant predicament of being without a sweetheart, and with a very strong desire to 'settle herself in life.' In her youth she was really a splendid looking woman. She was not ill-looking at fifty-nine; and Hester Ladyman knew well the exact moral and marketable value of every item that made up an unmarried lady's toilette. Under these circumstances, imagine her rage at the affront put upon her. She surveyed the wreck with some dismay; but the laughter from her quizzing neighbours in the street drove her frantic. One of them, an ungallant old sweetheart of hers, jocosely inquired, if she had in despair married a monkey, because she could not procure a husband of the genus homo. She seized a bundle of old rags, placed them in the grate, and deliberately set fire to them, muttering between her clenched teeth, that death alone in its most hideous form was an adequate penalty for so heinous a transgression. Jerry never was particularly partial to smoke. He failed to appreciate the aroma of the finest Havanah cigar. He was not, therefore, very likely to rejoice in that which exhales from the combustion of dilapidated old linen. He, accordingly, ascended to the chimney-top, and was gazing quietly around him, cogitating upon the best course of future action, when the smart crack of a fowling piece startled him. A small shot or two passed through his left ear, but did him no serious injury. The sudden fright, however, seemed to paralyze his limbs. He fell back wards, fortunately for him, down a neighbouring flue, otherwise Miss Hester's fiery vengeance would have been soon consummated to her heart's most complete content. In a sitting-room in the same mansion, the elder Miss Ladyman, an invalid for nearly half-a-century, was sighing over an ancient well-thumbed letter from the officer whose heart had proved so fickle some forty years previously, when Hester entered, followed by the maid-servant and some of the neighbours, in a state of the greatest agitation. Miss Ladyman begged in the most piteous manner that they would not annoy her, in her then sad condition, with such silly stories about a simple monkey. She had her own cross to carry. And in her delicate state of health, it was a serious burthen, doubtless. Hester was,

lightly touching here a curl and there a curl, till the task is done, the effect achieved, and the chintz wrapper is whisked off with a rapid and scarcely perceptible action! "Now sar, if you please, sar," says darkie; and Pseudo T. C. takes the vacant chair.

It has been plaintively declared by the author of "Vanity Fair," that you do not travel in these days; that you do not like as a substitute for that extinct species of enjoyment, the being whirled along on a railway; that you endure it as you endure having your hair cut, but that you don't like it. Now I am not habitually a caviller, and least of all times am I disposed to cavil when a man like Mr. Thackeray speaks his thought; but I must say that I like travelling by rail, especially backwards in a coupé, and at the rear of the train, so that the whole country we are leaving behind lingers lovingly in sight, and, as it recedes, gives place to fresher beauties. And I like having my hair cut. Of all minor sensations, I like having my hair cut; more especially do I like having it cut by a negro artist. There is none like him, none. personal attendance of all kinds your negro is unsurpassed, wherever you may find him; and I heartily wish that he were oftener to be found in this quarter of the globe. Belike he may be, if events should lead to his enfranchisement on the other side of the Atlantic.

[ocr errors]

In

You have places now in London, in Glasgow, Dublin, Birmingham, Liverpool -in every city and large town of the United Kingdom, in fact-where they pretend to "shampoo" your hair in the American manner. Generally, it is the merest pretence in the world; a delusion, in fact, the character of which is suggested by either syllable of the Eastern term. By-the-bye, our brethren of the West have, in the first instance, appropriated that term with imperfect practical and etymological warrant. But never mind that. Accepting the corrupt signification of the word, there is a pleasant soothing effect in the American process of shampooing. It is an alternate series of mild shocks and drowsy influences. You are stimulated with rubbings, and lulled with tepid streams, and refreshed with cool showers. At the outset Sambo combs and clips your hair in ordinary fashion; and after that he brushes it with a pair of brushes, the hardness of which is tempered to your powers of endurance, that is, the quantity of your hair. Shampoo, sir?" Yes, you will be shampooed; so Sambo gets a bottle containing a saponaceous fluid, with which he lathers your head. I am afraid there is soda in this fluid, and I strongly advocate the substitution of yolk of egg, as the most harmless of detergents. But whatever it is that they put on your head at Phalon's, they very soon wash it off again, as you stoop, according to direction, over an enormous basin. Who can minister to you in this way like Sambo? None; of all types and shades of humanity, none. I have said there are few places in the old country where the toilet (is this an allowable English word, or must I take the neat as imported "toilette?") is so admirably assisted as at Phalon's. Let me in passing do justice to the enterprising Mr. Clements, who has brought his Cambridge business up to London, and really seems bent on transcending the comforts and luxuries for which the New York barber's name is a synonyme. More especially does Mr. Clements study the convenience of his lady patronizers; and I don't think that a place so replete with luxury is elsewhere to be found. Lo, and behold, at Mr. Clements' I find an assistant whom I recognize as having held office at Phalon's! But where, oh where, Mr. Clements, are the negro artists? Shall Tichborne Street yet hope to know them? So far as I have the means of telling, yours is the only establishment, my good sir, on this side the Atlanlic, where all that is wanted to complete the Phalonistic parallel, is a staff of coloured attendants. Let us have them over, say I. We might do worse, and are doing worse every day, in the matter of American importation.

Phalon's, be it known, does not stop at shaving, hair-cutting, and shampooing. Turn to either side, and you will find choice of luxurious baths, in the management of which there is nothing left to desire. They will no doubt have the Russian bath at Phalon's by this time, or shortly; but I speak of what was before the Russian bath had made a name in Western Europe, and on the farther Western continent of America. I speak of two or three years ago. Then were the baths of Phalon's far ahead of all others in New York. There was an excellent arrangement for taking a shower-bath after the warm submersion; and the comforts of the bather were studied in many minute respects. For all this you were called on to pay no more than a quarter of a dollar, equivalent to one shilling British money. Truly, a notable shilling's-worth. Let us laugh at American magnificence, if we be that way inclined; but let us not forget that we have a clumsy, pompous, comfortless magnificence lingering among us -in our old-fashioned hotels, for instance-quite as ridiculous in every point of view. Oh, the chill, dreary solemnities we are still called upon to pay for at a swingeing rate! Oh the grave, stupid old swindles yet extant, such as lighting wax candles, and blowing them out again, and charging half-a-crown a-piece for these transient glories! It may be that excess of looking-glasses, and crystal gas-lustres, and Brussels carpeting is vulgar; it may be that over-ornamentation is always, on the whole, a rather vulgar affair; but is there, on the other hand, nothing vulgar in countenancing a traditional practice of extortion, the original pretence for which was a species of splendour which has long ceased to be splendid? Let us at least recognize in that amplitude of upholstery at Phalon's, which is, perhaps a little too obtrusively, "regardless of expense," let us acknowledge in it, I say, a conscientious and honest attempt to give some sort of money's worth for money.

Well, now, the gentleman, so liable to be asked, in an inquiring country, how many dollars he made by "Sartor Rezartus," and what amount per annum he derives from his copyrights of the "History of the French Revolution," and the "Life of Frederick the Great," has been "streaked down" by his old friend Quashee: that is to say, has had his hair brushed, and clipped, and lathered, and sluiced, and wrung, and rubbed, and dry-rubbed, and anointed, and combed, and brushed again, in a very satisfactory manner. And he has made way in turn for the Honourable Hickory Buckskin, and has proceeded, through a door and passage at the farther end of the palatial cellar, and up another flight of steps to a tobacco-store which conveniently adjoins Phalon's. I, too, submit myself to that drowsy process which I have imperfectly described; and, while I doze beneath those nimble fingers, I also dream.

I dream that Quashee, free to travel whithersoever he listeth, has travelled to the isle where freedom does, if anywhere, abide. I dream that his family has, in great part, followed him. I dream that the true value of the members of that family has been discovered in the country where, of all countries, it can be best appreciated; in the country, that is to say, whose inhabitants most love the comforts of a home, and best requite the services which can secure them. I mix up, in the baseless fabric of my vision, the figure of the American gentleman who is by this time quietly enjoying his cigar in the adjoining establishment. I hear his voice again, and the words are not like the words he spoke before, and the accents are not like the accents with which he spoke them. He speaks of negro slavery, and insists that where the Divine right of being permitted to work shall not be exercised, the Divine right of being compelled to work shall be bestowed. He says:

"Do I then hate the negro? No; except when the soul is killed out of him, I decidedly like poor Quashee, and I find him a pretty kind of man. A swift, supple fellow; a merry-hearted, grinning, dancing, singing,

affectionate kind of creature, with a great deal of melody and amenability in his composition. This, certainly, is a notable fact :-The black African, alone of wild men, can live among men civilized. While all manner of Caribs and others pine into annihilation in presence of the pale faces, he contrives to continue; does not die of sullen, irreconcilable rage, of rum, of brutish lazine-s and darkness, and fated incompatibility with his new place, but lives and multiplies, and evidently means to abide among us, if we can find the right regulation for him. We shall have to find it; we are now engaged in the search; and

[ocr errors]

"Eureka!" I very nearly exclaim, very nearly starting up at the same time, and thereby very nearly throwing Quashee into a state of dumb amazement; " Eureka! and-WE HAVE FOUND IT!"

Yes, the grand discovery of Quashee's true industrial mission flashed upon my mind through that reverie which his manual offices had induced. He is the best, the most assiduous, and patient, of personal attendants; the best valet, the best waiter, the best cook. In all domestic service, his (or her) merits are incomparably excellent. Slavery, like all other wickednesses, was a mistake from the old, old beginning. But allow slavery, African slavery, to be not a mistake, but a wise and good thing, and I will yet maintain that the uses of the African slave are not properly appreciated or understood. White labour, in the field, in the factory, in the mart, is worth more than black, all the world over. That is, I believe, an admitted truth; but I do not know where the real superiority of the black as a household servant finds due acknowledgment. In those remarkable words which the American gentleman at Phalon's did not utter, but which Mr. Thomas Carlyle did, somewhere about th year 1850, and which I have ventured to apply to my own end, we have some of the good qualities of a domestic fairly described, but not all. It is surely well to have him (or her) a merry-hearted and an affectionate creature; it is surely well that he (or she) should be endowed with a great deal of melody and amenability. This is the case of the negro, man or woman, as it is truly put by Mr. Carlyle. But let me add my testimony, and declare what an able, willing, and faithful servant this black African is; how he never wearies of his office, and never meets impatience with impatience. places where he is most valuable, it unfortunately happens, for the most part, that there is no comparative test by which his merits may be shown to excel the white man's. I have known cooks and cities; but never did I find the cook to equal a black woman in the Canadian town of Brockville. Scored and seamed was she with the lash of a Carolinean overseer; and I was told by my friends that she was a fugitive, like many other black servants in our great British colony. I never shall forget that angel of darkness when the head of the house was sick, nigh unto death; I never shall forget her when he was recovering. Once she was required suddenly to supply some strong kind of broth. She had it hot in no time, and was about to pour it from the little saucepan into a tumbler, when her mistress said

In

"Mind, Patsy; you'll crack the glass "—for it was in the depth of a Canadian winter, when glass is apt to fly apart on contact with heat.

Nebber crack, mi-sis, when a hold like so," says Patsy.

Her method of prevention was to grasp the tumbler, with her thumb upon the rim and her fingers beneath, so as, by a moderate pressure, to check the expansion. She had filled the vessel with the hot broth, when her mistress again ventured to correct a seeming error :

In "Frazer's Magazine," and three years later in a separate pamphlet published by Mr. Bosworth, of Regent Street, London.

"You have not skimmed off the grease, Patsy."

The words were not well out of the good lady's mouth, when every particle of grease was removed from the surface of the broth, so that, as in the cup of Chaucer's dainty prioress, "there was ne ferthing seen." Patsy had, in short, blown off the liquid fat, literally as clean as a whistle.

Now, I dare say that Patsy was a poor hand at cotton-picking, or other field-work; and, so, far as a woman can earn stripes and blows by mere incompetency of labour, had come by those dreadful scars in a very natural way. Was it not good, then, that she should have removed herself from the plantation and the cowhide to the neat Brockville kitchen and the wages of a free woman?-wages that she honestly deserved, as I have shown.

Sensible of having travelled somewhat beyond the record, I now leave my proposal for the encouragement of negro immigration-a proposal that may seem to have shot up rather rapidly from the remote though interesting subject of having my hair cut in New York-in the hands of my readers.

FORMER DAYS.

BY MRS. CORNWALL BARON WILSON.

WE met! and talked o'er former days,
In our own native place,

And mem'ry shed her brightest rays
Those happy times to trace !

The sports the joys of boyhood's years,

We acted o'er again,

'Till our eyes dimmed with starting tears,
To feel that we were men!

We met! 'twas in a stranger clime,
And talk'd those frolics o'er,
Of youthful manhood's early prime,
That could be our's no more;

The mem'ry of that blissful past
Alone is left us now;

For time its snowy flakes have cast
O'er each once sunny brow!

How clear is mem'ry's golden light,
When parted school-mates meet;
Opening a vista green and bright

When all life's paths were sweet.
Like fountain in the desert waste
Is memory's light to age,
Yielding the fainting soul, a taste
Life's bitter to assuage!

« VorigeDoorgaan »