The Waterloo Bridge toll-gate now seems part of ancient history. Elderly people of a new generation will be saying to their children, “I recollect when there was a turnstile here and toll-houses, and every cab was stopped to pay twopence,” while a careless and “superior” allusion in a leader might run, “People will smile to think how those of the last generation, hurrying to catch the train, could have so calmly and patiently submitted to this importunate levy!” The public, however, grew so deft and experienced that the traveller was always ready with his cash, while the toll-man, co-operating, handed out the proper change in a second. This he contrived by long practice and by sense of touch, having a number of pockets, one for pennies, another for silver, etc. Many years ago Dickens was taken down the river of a night by the police, and heard from one of the toll-men some curious experiences concerning the suicides for which the bridge was then in high fashion. “The Bridge,” as the toll-man informed him, “was originally named the Strand Bridge, but had received its present name at the suggestion of the proprietors when Parliament resolved to vote three hundred thousand pounds for the erection of a monument in honour of the victory. Parliament took the hint,” said Waterloo, with the least flavour of misanthropy, “and saved the money.” Of course the Duke of Wellington was the first passenger, and of course he paid his coin, and of course he preserved it ever more.[11] The treadle and index at the toll-house (a most ingenious contrivance for rendering fraud impossible) were invented by Mr. Leathbridge, then property-man of Drury Lane Theatre. This was the now familiar “turnstile,” known so well at every exhibition, but then quite a novelty. Dickens ensconced himself in the toll-house and had a long and interesting talk with the toll-man on all the incidents he observed in his professional life. First, of the “suicides,” which now appear to have “gone out” with the tolls. “This is where it is,” said Waterloo, “if people jump off straight forwards from the middle of the parapet of the bays of the bridge, they are seldom killed by drowning, but are smashed, poor things; that’s what _they_ are; they dash themselves upon the buttress of the bridge. But, you jump off,” said Waterloo to me, putting his forefinger in a buttonhole of my great coat; “you jump off from the side of the bay, and you’ll tumble, true, into the stream under the arch. What you have got to do, is to mind how you jump in! There was poor Tom Steele from Dublin; didn’t dive! Bless you, didn’t dive at all! Fell down so flat into the water that he broke his breast-bone, and lived two days!”