The Children's Book of London Part 4

CHAPTER IX

DOGS AND CATS

Have you ever heard of the Dogs' Home? It is for all the poor lost dogs that the policemen find in the streets of London. Once upon a time there was a very naughty little dog called Scamp; he had long pepper-and-salt hair, and very short legs, and he did not think it was fun to go with the children of the house he lived in for their walk in the Park: he wanted something more exciting, so he waited until they were not looking, and then scampered off after another big dog he saw in the distance. The big dog was very friendly, and began to play and run about, and Scamp went after him as fast as his little short legs would go; and by-and-by he grew tired, and lay down, panting, on the pavement, and the big dog went away home. Then Scamp saw a cat coming very slowly across the street to the little strip of gra.s.s that was surrounded by a railing on the other side, and if there was one thing he hated it was cats--nasty, cowardly, furry things! So he banged up suddenly, and the cat went off like a shot, and Scamp after her; but when he had chased her for quite a long time, she ran up a tree, and he could only stand and bark. A greengrocer's boy pretended to bark too, and teased him; so he grew cross, and thought he would go home. But he discovered all at once that he did not know where home was, or even in which direction; and he ran a little in one direction and a little in another, and then set off running at full speed, with his long tail down between his legs.

A woman called to him and tried to stop him, but he only dodged her and ran faster, until he came to a wide street full of shops, and here people walking about, and carriages and cabs driving past, and he got quite bewildered; and then, just when he was in despair, a policeman caught hold of him and looked for his collar. Now, the silly little dog had not got his collar on. Ethel had taken it off that morning to rub up his name and address, and make them look nice and bright, and when she wanted to put it on again, he had raced round the room and played, and would not let her catch him until the governess had called out that it was lesson-time; so Ethel had gone down, leaving the collar lying on the table, and after lesson-time had forgotten all about it. So the big policeman did not know to whom the dog belonged or where to take him.

Scamp was too well-mannered a little dog to bite, but he tried to get down when the policeman took him up and struggled hard. The policeman only laughed, and patted his head. 'No, no, my fine fellow,' he said good-naturedly; 'there'll be someone looking for you, or I'm much mistaken, and I must do my best to let them find you.' So he took him to a police-station near, and very soon Scamp was sent down with a s.h.i.+vering little fox-terrier to the Dogs' Home at Battersea.

He did not understand that it was his only chance of getting home; for Ethel and Jack's father would know about the home, and send there to see if he were there first of all. And he thought that the people at the Dogs' Home were going to keep him all his life, and he did not like the idea at all. For many dogs it would have been a comfortable place. There were nice little kennels and good beds of hay, and plenty of drinking water and clean good biscuit to eat, and little yards to run about in; but Scamp was not happy. He was accustomed to live in the house and sleep on the chairs, and be petted and made a fuss with, and n.o.body took any notice of him here. He was very hungry, though, so he tried to eat a little of the dog-biscuit; but in the middle he suddenly thought of Ethel and Jack and how he loved them, and that he should never find them again, and he stopped eating because a great lump seemed to stick in his throat, and he went and sat down in a corner of the yard, just a heap of gray hair and unhappiness. Presently a man came and patted him and spoke kindly to him, but he took no notice. He thought how often he had been cross when Ethel had hurt him in combing his hair, though she had only been trying to make him look nice, and how sulky he had been many times when she wanted to play with him; and he thought if only he could get back he would be so good. All the bad things he had done in his life came into his mind as he sat in the yard. He remembered that, when he was only a puppy, about a year ago, he had worried one of Ethel's dolls, and she had cried, and he had licked her face and tried to tell her he was sorry, and she had flung her arms round him, and said: 'Never mind, dear good old Scamp! I love you more than all the dolls, and I know you didn't mean it.' How good she was always! He loved her better than Jack, though she did tease him. She had often dressed him up in her dolls'

clothes and made him lie upside down in her arms in a very uncomfortable position, while she pretended he was a baby.

He had killed a canary once, and once--it was very sad, and he did not quite know how it had happened--he had got on to the sideboard and eaten the cold beef while everyone was out at church on Sunday morning. The beef had been left there uncovered, and he was very hungry, and it smelt so good. He had climbed on to a chair and sniffed at it, and got a little nearer and nearer, and all the time he knew quite well he was doing wrong. And at last he jumped up and began to eat great juicy mouthfuls of it. Oh, how good it was! And he pulled it this way and that, and the cloth on the sideboard had got all crumpled up, and suddenly down went a dish of beetroot with a smash, and all the rich red juice streamed over the cloth and on to the carpet. He was frightened then, and turned to run away; but his broad, flat paws had got into the beetroot juice, and he left great marks all across the cloth. He heard the latchkey in the front-door just at that moment, and he ran upstairs and hid under Ethel's bed. Then the family came in, and he heard their cry of dismay, and Ethel called for him; but he only hid deeper under the bed. And then she came into the room, and said quite quietly, as if she knew he was there, though she never looked under the bed: 'Oh, Scamp! how could you?' And his broad tail went thump, thump against the floor. So he was dragged out and whipped, and he felt very much ashamed of himself.

Oh dear! if he could only get back to them all he would never do such naughty things again!

In the morning two or three other dogs were put into his yard, and though he wouldn't speak to them at all, and was too miserable to play, he heard what they said. One of them had been here before, and he explained that all the well-bred dogs, the good ones, were kept for a certain time to allow their people to come and find them, and if at the end of that time no one came for them they were sold; but the mongrels and little dogs that were of no value--well, it was very curious what happened to them. They went to sleep in a nice warm place like a drawer, but they never woke up again. They did not suffer at all, and it was all arranged very kindly. 'And of course,' said the dog who was speaking, 'it is quite right there should be some distinction between me and a mongrel!' She was very proud of herself, being a King Charles's spaniel, with soft brown and white hair and hanging ears and large goggle eyes. She came up to talk to Scamp after awhile; but he would not say anything to her, for his heart was sore within him. Yet what he had heard gave him some hope. All that day he sat with his face pressed close to the wires of the yard, watching, watching for his own people.

Why did they not come? They must have known he would be there. Once two ladies came past--gentle, kind ladies of the sort to which he was accustomed--and he sat up and begged. 'Oh, look at that dear doggie!'

cried one. 'We couldn't choose a nicer one; let us have him.' But when they inquired about him they found that Scamp was not for sale just yet.

Then toward evening, when it was growing dusk, he suddenly heard a voice that made his heart leap, and he jumped up and whined with excitement, and Ethel cried: 'Oh, father, there he is! Don't you hear him?' And he was let out, and she went down on her knees to kiss and hug him, and he jumped about her so wildly that he nearly knocked her hat off. Surely there was never a happier little dog went home that night than Scamp!

There are homes for cats in London, too; but often poor cats have a much worse time than dogs. You remember that a great many of the fas.h.i.+onable people only stay in London for the season, and then they shut up their houses and go away into the country for several months.

Well, sometimes they are so thoughtless as to leave their poor cats without any food or shelter--they forget about them. But a cat can't live on nothing any more than a dog can. Perhaps poor puss has been out for a walk, and comes back to find the house all shut and silent, and she waits patiently a long time; but no one comes, and the boys in the street throw stones at her. So she runs across to the square, and waits there; but still the door is never opened. If she is lucky and clever at hunting she may catch a little sparrow or find something in the roadway to eat; but as the days go on she gets thinner and thinner, and weaker and weaker, and at last, perhaps, dies of starvation unless some kind person takes the trouble to send her to a cats' home. The cats' homes are much the same as the dogs. If possible the cats are sold, and if not they are quietly and painlessly killed--a much better fate than starving in the streets. Sometimes the rich people do remember their cats, but can't take them away; and so before they go they send them to a cats'

home, and pay for them to be kept there until they come back. Puss is then well fed and happy; for a cat makes herself happy anywhere where she is comfortable much more readily than a dog does, and then when the family return for the winter she goes back to her own snug kitchen.

Some dogs who have lived in London all their lives as Scamp did, are used to it, and are happy enough, but it is not a good place for dogs.

It is very difficult for them to run about enough, and they can't go out by themselves for fear of getting lost or stolen, so often a dog has a very unhappy time. There are dogs who are so much accustomed to London that they will follow an omnibus if their master is on it, and keep running by the side and looking up and barking. And they do not seem to get at all confused by the many, many omnibuses pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing, but follow the right one all the time. But this is very exceptional.

Generally a London life is an unhappy one for any but a very small house-dog.

In one part of Hyde Park there is a dogs' burial-ground, where people can bury their pets. You can see it from the road as you pa.s.s, or you can go in and look at it. It is very full. There are numbers of small stones like little gravestones put to mark the places where many a loved dog lies. Most of the stones are alike--small rounded ones with the dogs' names on them, and some are flat on the ground. There are flowers growing there, and the place is very bright and well cared for. We read here the names of many dogs--Punch, Dinah, Crow, Ruby Heart, Bogey, and Girlie. Strange names for dogs. The stones do not tell us what sort of dogs they were, though that would have been interesting. We can't find one in memory of Scamp, and I'm quite sure if he had died Ethel would have had him buried here, so near the gardens where he often ran and played. So Scamp must be living still. But other sorrowing mistresses have lost their little companions, and the inscriptions show a world of tenderness. We read, 'Alas, poor Zoe! as deeply mourned as ever dog was mourned,' and 'Darling Vic,' 'Snow, a dear friend,' 'Loving little Charlie,' 'Our faithful little friend Wobbles,' 'Jack, most loving and most fondly loved,' and many another. It must have been a happy world for such loved dogs as these.

CHAPTER X

ODDS AND ENDS

This is to be a chapter about all sorts of odd things that cannot be fitted in anywhere else. For instance, have any of you heard about the Messenger Boys? If not, I think that will interest you. Someone once formed a scheme of having a number of boys trained to go messages, or take parcels, or do anything that was required in London. And he set up offices all over London, where anyone could get one of these boys and send him on a message by paying his expenses and a small sum also, according to the distance he had to go. At every one of the offices there are a certain number of boys always going and coming. They take the messages in order as they come, and they may get a nice one or a nasty one. If you went into one of these offices and saw the boys sitting on a bench waiting, you would soon see how it works. Some of the boys are playing draughts, some are reading, but all are ready at any minute to go where they are told. There is a young man in charge of the office, and someone comes in with a message. So he turns to No. 1, a bright, chubby-faced little lad, and says, 'Go to this address and call for a parcel for this lady, whose name is written down, and take the parcel to her house. Be as quick as you can, and you can take a taxi-cab.' Off goes the boy, delighted to get such a nice job, and he feels very important to call up a cab for himself. He knows exactly where to go and how much to pay the cabman, for he has learnt all that before. The next boy is a big, awkward-looking lad, very tall for his age, and the young man laughs a little as he gives him a message: 'You are to call at No. 50 in this street,' he says, 'and the lady will hand over to you two children aged three and four. You are to take them to the Zoo and let them have a good time, and bring them back before six o'clock.'

The big boy makes a face. He does not fancy this idea at all; it is like being a nursemaid, and he thinks how silly he will look with two wee children. And all the other boys are grinning; but he cannot refuse. He is like a soldier, and must do just what he is told. So off he goes and asks for the children. But when he finds he can take them up in a cab, and that they are dear, bright, happy little things, full of mischief, he begins to enjoy himself, and they spend a lovely afternoon together; and when he brings them back safely, and the mother gives him half a crown for himself in addition to his fee, he feels he has had a good day.

Some time elapses when he has left the office before smart little No. 3 gets anything to do, and then he is told to go to King's Cross Station to meet two schoolboys and see their luggage is safe, and take them across to Charing Cross. When he gets there he finds both the boys are bigger than himself, but they are country boys going to school for the first time, and are very frightened and bewildered, and little No. 3 cheers them up, so that they part quite good friends.

But these are a few of the odd things the boys have to do, and most of their time is spent in taking notes about. You can see them anywhere in London in their neat dark-blue uniforms with silver decorations. Once a gentleman walked into one of the Messenger Boy offices, and said quietly, as if he were saying nothing extraordinary, 'I want a boy to take a note for me to America.'

The man in charge showed no surprise, but only asked when the boy was to start. The gentleman said he might go the next day, which would give him time to get his clothes together.

The boy who was next on the list was called Jaggers, and he was a bright, intelligent little lad. He ran home eagerly to ask if his parents would let him go, and having got permission, he went off cheerfully the next day across the Atlantic Ocean to New York. He arrived safely and delivered his message, and then went on to Chicago and Philadelphia, as he had been instructed. He returned in eighteen days, having travelled 8,000 miles, and he found he was quite a hero, and the man who had sent him gave him a medal with a clasp or bar of silver for each place he had gone to. I think many a boy might have been frightened when told to go off to the other side of the world so suddenly.

After Jaggers another boy did an even pluckier thing. His name was Halsey, and he was sent to California, which is on the other side of America, much further than New York, and he had to go right across the continent and find the way all by himself, and he was given no time to get ready as Jaggers was, but started almost immediately. That boy afterwards fought for England in South Africa in the Imperial Yeomanry, and is now in a responsible position in the Messenger Service. Another boy was sent to the Sultan of Turkey to take a dog as a present. I think that must have been the most difficult to do of the three things, for the dog might have died on the way, and when the boy got to Turkey he would have the disadvantage of being in a country where a foreign language was spoken. These are exceptional cases, of course, but the boys are still sometimes sent to the Continent with messages. But enough about the Messenger Boys.

There is a sight to be seen in London nearly every evening, and particularly on Sat.u.r.day evenings, that always seems to me to be most touching, and that is the rows of little children waiting outside the shops for food that is sold cheaply. In great shops which sell food that soon perishes--for instance, fish, or fruit, or bread-stuffs--there is often a certain quant.i.ty left over at night that will not be quite fresh in the morning, and so it is sold cheaply, and it is this that the children of the poor come to buy. Some shops almost give it away. On Sat.u.r.day night, outside a pastry-cook's, there was a row of patient boys and girls, each with a basket or bag, and some had been standing there for a long time, because it is a case of 'first come, first served,' and no pus.h.i.+ng is allowed. As another little child arrived it took up its stand at the end of the row, and waited until the time came for closing the shop. Then each child paid so much--say sixpence--and got a large quant.i.ty of bread, and so much cake, and if there was not enough to go round the last ones had to go away without any.

At the fish shops there are different ways of doing this at different shops. At one big shop all the fish that is over after the day's sale is done is put into a large basket--there may be a piece of cod, and several small fish, and some whiting or mackerel--and then each child pays twopence, and the man in the shop deals out the fish as it comes, giving so much to each, without asking what the children want. The poor little bairns watch eagerly until their own turn comes. See that big bit of cod? That would make a Sunday dinner for all of Ellen's people, and Ellen watches it anxiously. There is a very small girl in front of herself, and Ellen nearly cries when she sees the man put it into her bag; but she cheers up again when a whole fish, of what kind she is not quite sure, but still it looks very good, is pa.s.sed on to her. There is no waiting afterwards. How the little feet run home, and how the shrill little voices cry, 'Mother, mother! look what I've got!' But it may be also that a disappointed little girl goes away, crying softly, for she came too late, so she had to stand quite at the end of the row, and when her turn came there was nothing left. 'No more to-night,' the shopman said cheerily, and seeing the pale, wistful little face, he added, 'Come in better time another week, little girl.'

The little girl stole away quietly, but when she got to a dark corner she sat down and cried bitterly; it was not so much for the sake of the fish as because she knew she would get a beating from her drunken mother when she went home without it. Yet she could not help it; she had had so much to do that day--work, work, work from morning to night, partly at school, partly at home--and she had run to the fish shop as soon as ever she could, only to find herself too late. Children, there are sad times in the lives of little girls such as these which none of you will ever know.

But, as we have said once or twice, the lives of street children are by no means all darkness; the merry games, the society of other children, and the stir and life of London make up for a great deal. In some of the streets you can see the boys running about on roller skates--bits of wood on tiny wheels, strapped on to their boots. The smooth London pavements are very good for this sport, and the boys skate about, getting wonderfully clever at it, and enjoying themselves immensely.

Then they have their tops, which they spin on the pavements or in the roadway among the feet of the people walking, without minding in the least. There are tops all over the streets at some times of the year spinning gaily. The girls have their skipping-ropes, which are apt to be a nuisance to the people who want to walk on the pavements; but sometimes there is a side alley where no one goes, and here the children can skip undisturbed.

One game that seems a great favourite with the children is called 'Hop-scotch,' or 'London Town.' They draw a number of divisions on the pavement with white chalk, and then hop from one to the other kicking a bit of stone along the pavement with their toe; they must send it into the next square at every hop, and they must not put the other foot to the ground until they send it safely into the last division of all, which is Home or London. The little girls get quite clever at this, hopping lightly and daintily. Sometimes they draw a circle instead of a square, which makes it more difficult to do, but the game is the same.

When the barrel-organ comes round, as it very often does, the children dance; they don't mind that it has travelled in wind and weather for perhaps ten years, and that it has lost all tune it may have had, and only grinds out a horrible noise: they like the noise, and dance up and down holding their little skirts, or twirling one another round in great enjoyment. The streets do not allow of wild, romping games, and it would be dangerous to dash about and try to catch one another, so most of these are games that can be played on the pavement in safety.

The children who live near parks are luckier than those who have only the streets for playgrounds, and these parks are filled with children, especially on Sat.u.r.day afternoons. There is one called Battersea Park, near the river, where you may sit on a little knoll at one end, and, in summer, as far as you can see there are boys playing cricket. They are so mixed up that it is difficult to tell which ball belongs to which, and often a good hit sends one ball flying into the middle of the next game. Some of them have real wickets, and at one end there is a carefully kept ground where men play; but some of the little boys have no wickets, and only a bit of wood for a bat. So they get a stick from somewhere and make it stand up in the ground, and then hang one of their shabby little coats round it to make a wicket; but they shout loudly with joy, and enjoy themselves at their game just as much as the bigger boys with real wickets.

A thing you very often see in London, and, indeed, in other towns, too, is a man sitting on the bare stone pavement drawing pictures on the stones with coloured chalks. Sometimes he does them very well, and makes scenes of battles and views of pretty places or s.h.i.+ps at sea, but at other times they are hideous and badly drawn. He does this in order that people may give him pennies as they pa.s.s. He is not allowed to beg, and if he tried to the policeman would come and take him up; but he doesn't like hard work, so he sits beside his pictures and holds his cap out piteously, and very often people give him pennies in pa.s.sing, so he makes a living without too much trouble. But unless he is old or crippled, he ought to be doing better work than this. There are always a great many odd men who have no work to do in London; there are some who earn a living by going about in the early morning, when people put their dustbins out, and picking out anything that they think they can sell--a disgusting trade; others used to watch until they saw a cab with luggage on it, and then they ran after it sometimes for miles and miles, and when it stopped they would offer to carry the boxes upstairs. These men certainly earned their money, for they had to run fast and far, and to carry a box up the flights and flights of stairs in a London house is not an easy task; but, unfortunately, they were generally men who were out of work through their own fault, who had been drunken or idle or rude, and they were not at all pleasant to deal with, and sometimes they made themselves very disagreeable if they didn't get what they considered enough money, and refused to go out of the house until a policeman was fetched. So it is as well perhaps that now this means of extorting money is impossible, for no man could run fast enough to keep up with a taxi-cab.

The barrel-organ man we have already mentioned. He is frequently an Italian, and has a dark-haired woman with him, and she wears a red handkerchief over her hair to make her look more foreign; and they go from house to house grinding out their awful tunes, and they get very well paid, for the people in the poorer shops and in the foreign parts of London like the noise, and give them pennies. Sometimes the man has a monkey, which always attracts the children. Other men walk about with barrows selling ice-cream; this is sold at a half-penny a time, and the children lick it out of little gla.s.ses and have no spoons: one wonders how often the gla.s.ses are washed. But that does not trouble the little street children at all; they follow the ice-cream man in throngs like flies in summer whenever it is hot. Poor little bairns! they have no milk to drink or nice cool rooms to go to, only the hot, dusty street, and they must often be thirsty. Well, all these things you can see in the streets daily, and a great many more. I have not spoken of the 'sandwich' man; that is a funny name, and it means the man is sandwiched between two great boards, which he carries on his front and back. On these are written in large letters the name of a new play, or a restaurant, or anything else to which someone wants to attract attention. These men are paid a very little each day; they are hired a large number together, and walk along by the side of the pavement with their great boards one after another, so the people pa.s.sing in the street read the boards, and perhaps go to see the play or to dine at the restaurant. The men are bound to keep on walking always together all day, and they very often are ashamed of their work; for they may have been something better than this, for to be a sandwich man is about the lowest work a man can do, but, at any rate, it is earning money honestly, without begging or stealing.

BOOK II

HISTORICAL STORIES

CHAPTER XI

KING EDWARD V

I think I heard someone ask for stories, and there are many stories connected with London, though they are generally rather sad ones. There was once a boy who became Edward V., King of England, who had a sad life and a short one, and though he was a prince and a king I am sure he would much rather have been neither. His father was Edward IV., and he had not become King of England by inheritance, but because he had won the crown by fighting.

Before him Henry VI. was king, and Edward claimed the throne by right of his birth. So they fought, and there was a civil war. You know what that is--a war between people of the same country who take different sides, and it is the worst of all wars. As Edward IV. was Duke of York, his side called themselves Yorkists, and wore a white rose as a badge; and Henry VI.'s side called themselves Lancastrians, and wore a red rose.

Edward was very strong and very handsome, and a great many people admired him and fought for him because they thought he would make a fine king. And Henry was weak and feeble; but then he was king already, and his father had been king before him; so a great many people took his side for that reason. While they were still fighting Edward married secretly a beautiful woman, a widow, called Elizabeth Woodville, and soon after this he was so successful that he found he could settle in London and have himself crowned king, while Henry and his wife and son had to fly to Scotland. Then Edward told his great n.o.bles that he was married, and for a time all went on well. Edward and Elizabeth were very happy. They lived in great state, and soon a little daughter was given to them, and they called her Elizabeth. All the time poor Henry and his brave Queen Margaret and his son Edward were hiding away in lonely places. Little did they think then that the time would soon come when it would be proud Edward IV. who had to fly and hide in his turn!

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAFALGAR SQUARE.]

After awhile Edward IV. managed to capture Henry, and he put him in prison in the Tower of London, and then, no doubt, he felt he was very safe. But Edward had a follower called the Earl of Warwick, a very powerful man. And he was angry, because he had wanted the King to marry a sister of the King of France; but the King had not done as he wished, for he had married Elizabeth Woodville. So the Earl of Warwick waited for a good opportunity, and then raised up a disturbance in Yorks.h.i.+re.