Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
to do what you require; and I can
give you all the information you will want. At present nothing can be done -
nothing; and if we stay here much longer, we shall be discovered."
"Well," said the Resurrection Man; "provided
that some good will result from your visit "
"There will - there will."
"Then I must follow your advice; for of course you are
better able to judge of what can be done and what can't be done in this crib,
than me."
The Resurrection Man glanced around him; but fortunately
there was no plate left upon the shelves on this occasion. Holford felt
inwardly pleased at this circumstance; for the idea of abstracting anything
beyond a morsel of food from the palace was abhorrent to his mind.
The Resurrection Man intimated that he was ready to depart;
and the pot-boy was only too glad to be the means of hurrying him away.
They left the palace, and entered the gardens, which they
threaded in safety. A profound silence reigned around the morning air was chill
and piercing. The fresh atmosphere was nevertheless most welcome and cheering
to the young pot-boy, who had passed so many hours in close and heated rooms.
They reached the wall on Constitution Hill in safety, and in
a few moments were beyond the enclosure of the royal domains.
THE "BOOZING KEN" ONCE MORE
MORNING dawned upon the great metropolis.
The landlord and landlady of the "Boozing-Ken" on
Saffron Hill were busily employed, as we have seen them upon a former occasion,
in dispensing glasses of all sorts to their numerous customers. The bar was
surrounded by every thing the most revolting, the most hideous, and the most
repulsive in human shape.
"Well, Joe," said the landlord to a man dressed
like a butcher, and whose clothes emitted a greasy and carrion-like smell,
" what news down at Cow Cross?"
"Nothink partikler," answered the man, who
followed the pleasant and agreeable calling of a journeyman-knacker. "We
have been precious full of work lately - and that's all I knows or cares about.
Seventy-nine horses I see knocked down yesterday; and out of them, fifty-three
was so awful diseased and glandered when they was brought in, that we was
obleeged to kill 'em and cut em up with masks and gloves on. It was but three
weeks ago that we lost our best man, Ben Biddle;- you recollects Ben
Biddle?"
"I knowed him well," said the landlord. "He
took his 'morning' here reglar for sixteen years, and never owed a penny."
"But do you know how he died? " demanded the
knacker, staring the landlord significantly in the face.
"Can't say that I do."
"He died of a fearful disease which is getting more and
more amongst human creeturs every day," continued the knacker :-" he
died of the glanders!"
"The glanders!" ejaculated the landlady, with a
shudder; and all the persons who were taking their "morning" at the
bar crowded around the knacker to hear the particulars of Ben Biddle's death.
"You see," resumed the knacker, now putting on a
very solemn and important air, " there is more diseased horses sold in
Smithfield-Market than sound
[word missing, ed.]
. The art of
doctoring a dying horse so that he looks as lively and sound as possible to any
one which ain't wery knowing in them matters, is come to sich a pitch, that I am
blowed if the wisest ain't taken in at times. We have horses come into our yard
that was bought the same morning in Smithfield, and seemed slap-up animals; but
in a few hours the effects of the stimulants given to 'em goes off, the plugs
falls out of their noses, and there they are at the point of death. Why - if a
horse has got four white feet, they'll paint three, or perhaps all on 'em
black; and that part of the deception isn't never found out till they're flayed
in our yard."
"But about poor Biddle?" said the landlord.
"Well, in comes a horse one day," continued the
knacker; "and although we saw he was dead lame and altogether done up, we
never suspected that he had the glanders. So Ben Biddle had the killing on him.
He drives the pole-axe into the animal's skull; and he takes the wire and
thrusts it into the brain as business-like as possible. While he was stooping
over the beast, his hat falls off his head, and his handkerchief, which he
always carried in his hat, fell just upon the horse's mouth. The brute snorted
out a last groan at the wery moment that Ben picks up his handkerchief. So Ben
puts the handkerchief again into his hat, and puts his hat upon his head; and
away we all goes to the public-house to have a drop of half-and-half."
"Very right too," said the landlord, who no doubt
spoke feelingly.
"Well," proceeded the knacker, " Ben drinks
his share, and presently he takes his handkerchief out of his hat quite
permiscuous like, and wipes his face. In a few minutes he feels a strange pain
in the eyes just as if some dust had got in ;- but he did'nt think much on it,
and so we all goes back to the yard. In a few hours Ben was taken so bad he was
obliged to give up work ; and by eight or nine o'clock we was forced to take him
to Bartholomew's Hospital. He was seized with dreadful fits of womiting; and
matter come out of his nose, eyes, and mouth. By the morning his face was all
covered over with sores; holes appeared in his eyes, just for all the world as
if they had got a most tremendous small-pox in 'em; and his nose fell off. By
three o'clock in the arternoon he was a dead man; and I heard say that he died
in the most awful agonies."
"And that was the glanders?" said the landlady.
"Yes he got 'em by wiping his face with the
pocket-handkerchief that had fallen on the horse's nostrils."
"How shocking!" ejaculated several voices.
"And is the glanders increasing?" asked the
landlord.
"The glanders is increasing," answered the
knacker; "and I feel convinced that it will soon become a disease as
reglar amongst human beings as the small-pox or measles; 'cos the authorities
doesn't do their duty in preventing the sale of diseased animals."
"And how would you remedy the evil?"
"I would have the Lord Mayor and Corporation appoint a
proper veterinary surgeon as Inspector in Smithfield Market - a man of great
experience and knowledge, who won’t let himself be humbugged or gammoned by any
of those infernal thieves that gets a living - aye, and makes fortunes too, by
selling diseased animals doctored up for the occasion."
"Yes - that's certainly a capital plan of your'n,"
said the landlord approvingly. "But what becomes of all the flesh of the
horses that go to your yards?"
"You may divide the horses that's killed by the
knackers into three sorts," answered the man: "that is - first, those
horses that is quite healthy but that has met with accidents in their limbs;
second, those that is perhaps the least thing diseased, or in the very last stage
through old age; and third, those that is altogether rotten. The flesh of the
first is bought by men whose business it is to boil it carefully, and sell it
to the sassage-makers: it makes the sassages firm, and is much better than
beef. There isn't a sassage shop in London that don't use it. Then the tongues
of these first-rate animals goes to the butchers, who salts and pickles 'em;
and I'm blow'd if any one could tell 'em from the best ox- tongues."
"Well, I'll never eat sassages or tongues again!"
cried the landlady.
"Oh! nonsense - it's all fancy!" exclaimed the
knacker. "Half the tongues that is sold for ox-tongues is horses' tongues.
A knowing hand may always tell 'em, cos they're rayther longer and thinner: for
my part, I like em 'just as well - every bit."
"And the flesh of the second sort of horses?"
"That goes to supply the cat's-meat men in the swell
neighbourhoods; and the third sort, that is altogether putrid and rotten, is
taken up by the cat's-meat men in the poor neighbourhoods."
"And do you mean to say that there is a difference even
in cat's-meat between the rich and the poor customers?" demanded the
landlord.
"Do I mean to say so?" repeated the knacker, in a
tone which showed that he was surprised at the question being asked: "why,
of course I do! The poor may be poisoned - and very often is too - for what the
rich cares a fig. I can tell you more too: some of the first class horses'-meat
- the sound and good, remember -is made into what a called
hung-beef
;
some is potted; some is sold to the boarding-schools round London, where they
takes in young gen'lemen and ladies at a wery low rate; and some is disposed of
- but, no - I don't dare tell you —"
"Yes - do tell us!" said the landlady, in a
coaxing tone.
"Do - there's a good fellow," cried the landlord.
"Come, tell us," exclaimed a dozen voices.
"No - no - I can't - I should get myself into a scrape,
perhaps," said the knacker, who was only putting a more keen edge upon the
curiosity which he had excited, for he intended to yield all the time.
"We won't say a word," observed the landlady.
"And I'll stand a quartern of blue ruin," added
the landlord, "with three outs - for you, me, and the missus."
"Well - if I must, I must," said the knacker, with
affected reluctance. "The fact is,
"
he continued slowly, as if he were weighing every word he
uttered, "some of the primest bits of the first-rate flesh that goes out
of the knackers' yards of this wast metropolis is sent to the workuses!"
"The workhouses!" ejaculated the landlady:
"oh, what a horror!"
"An abomination!" cried the landlord, filling
three wine-glasses with gin.
"It is God's truth - and now that I've said it, I II
stick to it," said the knacker.
"It a shame - a burning shame! " screamed a female
voice. "My poor old mother's in the Union, after having paid rates and
taxes for forty-two year; and if they make her eat horse's-flesh, I’d like to
know whether this country is governed by savages or not."
"And my brother's in a workus too," said a poor
decrepit old man; "and he once kept his carriage and dined in company with
George the Third at Guildhall, where he'd no end of turtle and venison. But,
lack-a-daisy! this is a sad falling off, it he's to come down to horse-flesh in
his old age."
"What a the use of all this here whining and nonsense,
oh?" exclaimed the knacker. "Don't I tell you that good horse-flesh
answers all the purposes of beef, and is eaten by the rich in the shape of
sassages and tongues? What a the use, then, of making a fuss about it? How do
you suppose the sassage-shops can afford to sell solid meat, without bone, at
the price they do, if they didn't mix it with horses'-flesh? They pays
two-pence a-pound for the first-class flesh - and so it must be good."
Never mind," ejaculated a voice: "it's a shame to
give paupers only a few ounces of meat a-week, and let that be horses'-flesh.
It's high time these things was put an end to. Why don't the people take their
own affairs in their own hands?"
"Come, now," said the knacker, assuming a
dictatorial air, and placing his arms akimbo; "perhaps you ain't aweer
that good first-class horses'-flesh is better than half the meat that is sold
in certain markets - I shan't say which - for the benefit of the poor. Now you
toddle out on Sunday night, on the Holloway, Liverpool, Mile End, and Hackney
roads, and see the sheep, and oxen, and calves, coming into London for the next
morning's market. Numbers of the poor beasts fall down and die through sheer
fatigue. They're flayed and cut up all the same for the butcher's market. And
what do you think becomes of all the beasts that die of disease and so on, in
the fields? Do you suppose they're wasted? No such a thing!
They
are
all cut up too for consumption. Just take a walk on a Saturday night through a
certain market,
after
the gas is lighted - not
before
,
mind - and look at the meat which is marked cheap. You'll see beef at two-pence
halfpenny a pound, and veal at three-pence. But what sort of stuff is it?
Diseased - rotten! The butchers rub it over with fresh suet or fat, and that
gives it a brighter appearance and a better smell. Howsomever, they can't
perwent the meat from being quite thin, shrunk, poor, and flabby upon the
bone."
"I'll bear witness to the truth of all wot you've been
saying this last time," said a butcher's lad, stepping forward.
"Of course you can," exclaimed the knacker,
casting a triumphant glance around him. "And do you know," he
continued, "that half the diseases and illnesses which takes hold on us
without any visible cause, and which sometimes puzzles the doctors themselves,
comes from eating this bad meat that I've been talkin' about. Now, tell me -
ain't a bit out of a good healthy horse, that was killed in a reg'lar way, with
the blood flowing, better than a joint off a old cow that dropped down dead of
the yellows in a field during the night, and wasn't found so till the
morning?"
With these words the knacker took his departure, leaving his
hearers disgusted, indignant, and astonished at what they had heard.
As the clock struck nine, the Resurrection Man and the
Cracksman entered the "Boozing Ken." They repaired straight into the
parlour, and seemed disappointed at not finding there some one whom they
evidently expected.
"He ain't come yet, the young spark," said the
Cracksman. "And yet he a had plenty of time to go home and get a change o'
linen and that like."
"May be he has turned into bed and had a good
snooze," observed the Resurrection Man. " He is not so
accustomed to remain up all night as we are."
"I think his head is reg'lar turned with what he has
seen in the great crib yonder. He seemed to give sich exceeding vague answers
to the questions we put to him as we walked through the park this morning. I've
heard say that the conversation of great people is very gammoning, and that
they can't always understand each other: so, if young Holford has been
listening to their fine talk, it's no wonder he's got crankey."
"Humbug!" ejaculated the Resurrection Man, sulkily.
" Let a have some egg-flip, and we'll wait for him. If he comes he shall
give us all the information we want; and if he doesn't, we will lay wait for
him, carry him off to the crib, and let the Mummy take care of him till he
chooses to speak."
"Yes - that'll be the best plan," said the
Cracksman. "But don't you think it a wery likely thing he wants to have
the whole business to himself?"
"That's just what I
do
think,"
answered the Resurrection Man. "he'll find himself mistaken, though - I
rather fancy."
"So do I," echoed the Cracksman. "But let's
have this egg-flip."
With these words be ordered the beverage and, in due time a
quart pot filled with the inviting compound, with a foaming head, and exhaling
a strong odour of spices, was brought in by a paralytic waiter, who had
succeeded the slip-shod girl mentioned on a former occasion.
"Good stuff this," said the Cracksman, smacking
his lips. " I wonder whether poor Buffer has got anythink half so good
this morning."
"What's to-day? Oh! Friday," mused the
Resurrection Man, as he sipped his quantum of flip from a tumbler, with a
relish equal to that evinced by his companion: "let's see - what's the
fare to-day in Clerkenwell Prison?"
"Lord! don't you recollect all that?" cried the Cracksman;
and taking a piece of chalk from his pocket, he wrote the Dietary Table of
Clerkenwell New Prison upon the wall:-