The Watch Man
I was alarmed to hear the creak of the constabulary gate in the wee small
hours of my night shift. After three months in London, I was inured to the
vulgar ways of street-hawkers summoning their customers: water-bearers
clapping, costermongers wailing, all manner of whistling, yodelling and
rattling. But this was the dead of night, and my heart began pounding as I
put down my newspaper.
I shaded the desk lamp and stepped up to the window.
Through the shadowy lamplight I made out a small shape, methodically
swinging the gate back and forth to produce that fearful creaking.
I hefted up the window. “Do they not use door knockers where you come from,
laddie?”
“Hulloah!” the shape replied. “Come out to play, Lilly Law? Shift your
dish, will you?”
I glared at him.
“Hofficer,” he went on with mock pomposity, “there is a hincident at Euston
Square, and your hassistance is required.”
“I don’t care if there’s a bonfire in the British Museum–”
“There’ll be a bonfire up your lally crackers if you don’t shift ’em.”
I was impressed with the bairn’s cheek. “Is it customary in these parts for
small boys to be summoning members of the constabulary?”
“Customary is exactly what it is, Captain Clocky.” He sighed, as if to
emphasise the depth of my ignorance, his breath forming clouds in the air.
“Especially as where Wardle is concerned. You coming?”
“Hold your horses–”
“Or shall I say you were out?”
“Inspector Wardle? Of the Yard?”
“God help us. Don’t they parlyaree inglesay where you come from?”
“We speak a damn sight better English than yous do.” At this, he laughed,
which I found even more annoying than his remarks. I was puzzled. “Wee man,
you don’t even know who I am.”
“You’re a Scotchman, and you’re the Watch Man. Am I right or am I a
Dutchman?”
My father told me not to stare. He said it showed ill-breeding. But I was
always third-rate at following father’s precepts, and I stared at the boy.
His hair was plastered across his forehead and his waistcoat a breeding
ground for lichens. Yet, despite the whiff of sewer life about him, he had
a jaunty grace. His eyes were a brilliant blue and his grin so charming it
was impossible to dislike him.
“The great inspector,” he said, “requests the use of your habilities. We
had heard they was considerable, hard though that is to credit on current
showing.”
“Look, wee man, how do you know who I am? How does Wardle know?”
“Word travels fast here. You’ll see. Everybody knows everybody else’s
business.”
…
Euston Evening Bugle, 9th November, 1859
Last Trump Sounds For London
The metropolis is doomed. Veteran reformer, Mr Edwin Chadwick, prophesises
the imminent demise of the capital in his pamphlet published today, “Smell
Is Disease.”
How wonderful smell concentrates the mind. For years Londoners have been
dying in their cohorts of cholera, typhus and worse. Yet it took the “Great
Stink” of last summer to convince panicked parliamentarians to stomach the
cost of the Sewers Bill. Poor Mr Disraeli, clutching his handkerchief to
his sensitive nose as he ran from the chamber!
Still, our reliance on Progress and Capital to cure our maladies seems
increasingly vain. Thus far, the Metropolitan Board of Works’ monumental
expenditure has effected only an embarrassment of traffic jams and a
shortage of bricks. The stink lingers on.
Devils At Euston Square
Last night, a water-powered crane–called an “hydraulic devil”–burst
outside Euston Station, killing a vagrant. A sizable crowd applauded, as
passengers from the late train were greeted with an impromtu fountain.
Inspector Wardle of Scotland Yard insists that readers of the Bugle may go
safely about their business. Nonetheless, the use of hazardous machinery in
defiance of the builders’ strike must be cause for alarm.
Another alarming local development sees the Metropolitan Railway sink a
preliminary shaft at Euston Square next month. In approving the
short-sighted plans of the Hon. Mr Charles Pearson, championed by that
misguided publication, the Clerkenwell Horn, the Traffic Select Committee
has ignored the Bugle’s manifestly superior proposal. Our “Crystal Way”
would have spanned the city with road, rail and pedestrian tiers,
triumphantly solving congestion in a feat of engineering to make the world
gasp.
“Shameless profiteering will lead London to the same dismal end as Rome and
Bablylon,” predicts Mr Chadwick, in his Sanitary Committee pamphlet. “We
stand in need of drains, not trains.”
The Bugle awaits with curiosity the collapse of tunnels, annilhilation of
property, and subterranean fumigations that must inevitably result from
Pearson’s infernal undertakings.
Royal Celebrations
None of which can dampen the frolics of the younger royals. Albert Edward,
Prince of Wales, returned to Windsor Castle this morning.
Following a spirited start to his university career, rumour has it that he
is to be created a duke. Tonight Prince “Bertie” sets aside a raucous
social schedule to celebrate his eighteenth birthday with the Queen and the
Prince Consort.
Amongst such banquets and honours, may the ills of the capital remain to
him but a distant murmur.
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