Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London LifeKirwan, Daniel Joseph
History
Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- Social life and customs
"Will your Majesty be so kind as to ask your footman to leave the
saloon, I desire to speak to you on a matter of importance, privately."
"Very well, you may speak without intrusion," said the Queen, turning
her head slightly to the window where her servant stood with his back
turned coolly upon the Queen's cousin, "there is no one here but Brown,
he is very discreet."
[Sidenote: A GOOD STORY.]
Finding that the Highlander could not be prevailed upon to leave the
room, the Duke made a virtue of necessity and proceeded to state the
purport of his visit. The Queen engaged in conversation with her
cousin, and some minutes having elapsed the conversation turned upon
different subjects. The Duke was relating a joke about the Clubs for
the edification of the Queen, in which a noble person was made to
assume a ridiculous position, when all at once he was interrupted
with a peal of coarse and irreverent laughter, which rang through the
apartments, and the Duke turning around with a thrill of horror and
astonishment, heard Brown scream out while he held his sides to contain
his mad mirth:
"Oh! oh! What a d----d fule that fellow must have been."
The Duke for a moment stood petrified with horror, an unpleasant tremor
ran down the small of his back, and then being seized with a sudden
idea, he took his hat and making a low reverence left the apartment as
the Queen said in an irritable tone:
"Oh! never mind, it's only Brown."
The story was too good to keep, and in a few days it was known all over
London.
On the day that the Queen opened Blackfriars bridge she rode in a state
carriage with Brown behind her, and the act was so flagrant that when
the procession passed through the Strand, the Queen was openly hissed
by the people who stood on the sidewalks and saw the burly form of the
Scotsman in the carriage, so close to her Majesty.
I leave facts to speak for themselves, there is no need of comment. The
great rival of Punch is a paper called the Tomahawk, published in Fleet
street, and which is edited with fearless ability. The chief artist is
a Matthew Morgan who excels all others of his craft in London for the
beauty and spirit of his cartoons. Well, one day the Tomahawk appeared
with a large two paged cartoon, in which the queen was pictured in her
perambulator, and the tall form of Brown behind pushing the vehicle,
while he leaned over the back and looked with an affectionate leer into
the face of the sovereign of England. There was no inscription at the
bottom of the picture, but it was so truthful and telling, that every
person who looked, saw the whole scandalous story at a glance. Three
editions of this number of the Tomahawk were sold in a few days, and in
the corner of the picture the daring artist did not hesitate to sign
his initials, "M.M." It is sufficient to state that no proceedings were
taken, nor was a suit of libel brought against the editors who publish
the paper.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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