At this moment a review is being made of the long Victorian Age, and
people are reckoning up the wonderful changes in life and manners that
have taken place within the past sixty years. These have been so
imperceptibly made that they are likely to escape our ken, and the eye
chiefly settles on some few of the more striking and monumental kind,
such as the introduction of railways, of ocean steamships, electricity,
and the like. But no standard of comparison could be more useful or more
compendious than the immortal chronicle of PICKWICK, in which the old
life, not forgotten by some of us, is summarised with the completeness of
a history. The reign of Pickwick, like that of the sovereign, began some
sixty years ago. Let us recall some of these changes.
To begin: We have now no arrest for debt, with the attendant sponging-
houses, Cursitor Street, sheriffs' officers, and bailiffs; and no great
Fleet Prison, Marshalsea, or King's Bench for imprisoning debtors. There
are no polling days and hustings, with riotous proceedings, or
"hocussing" of voters; and no bribery on a splendid scale.
Drinking and drunkenness in society have quite gone out of fashion.
Gentlemen at a country house rarely or never come up from dinner, or
return from a cricket match, in an almost "beastly" state of
intoxication; and "cold punch" is not very constantly drunk through the
day. There are no elopements now in chaises and four, like Miss
Wardle's, with headlong pursuit in other chaises and four; nor are
special licenses issued at a moment's notice to help clandestine
marriages. There is now no frequenting of taverns and "free and easies"
by gentlemen, at the "Magpie and Stump" and such places, nor do persons
of means take up their residence at houses like the "George and Vulture"
in the City. No galleried inns (though one still lingers on in Holborn),
are there, at which travellers put up: there were then nearly a dozen, in
the Borough and elsewhere. There are no coaches on the great roads, no
guards and bulky drivers; no gigs with hoods, called "cabs," with the
driver's seat next his fare; no "hackney coaches," no "Hampstead stages,"
no "Stanhopes" or "guillotined cabriolets"--whatever they were--or "mail-
carts," the "pwettiest thing" driven by gentlemen. And there are no
"sedan chairs" to take Mrs. Dowler home. There are no "poke" or "coal-
scuttle" bonnets, such as the Miss Wardles wore; no knee-breeches and
gaiters; no "tights," with silk stockings and pumps for evening wear; no
big low-crowned hats, no striped vests for valets, and, above all, no
gorgeous "uniforms," light blue, crimson, and gold, or "orange plush,"
such as were worn by the Bath gentlemen's gentlemen. "Thunder and
lightning" shirt buttons, "mosaic studs"--whatever they were--are things
of the past. They are all gone. Gone too is "half-price" at the
theatres. At Bath, the "White Hart" has disappeared with its waiters
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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