London in the nineteenth century / by Sir Walter Besant.

  • Walter Besant
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: London in the nineteenth century / by Sir Walter Besant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    42/490 page 20
    and side, loud dress and loud manners,—a foreign gentleman who spoke English perfectly, knew Paris thoroughly, as well as Vienna and one or two other places, who was willing to run horses at races, who was ready to play any game with any comer, who paid when he lost and laughed merrily over misfortune, who laughed with equal merriment over good fortune, who drove in the Park with a lady of surprising beauty, and who gave himself the most amazing airs. Presently it began to be reported that the Count—he was a Count—was not paying his debts ; he still haunted the gaming-houses, he still paid when' he lost, but the Count was now accused of unfair play, and there was talk about money being owed everywhere. Finally, my friend’s firm served a writ upon him, and he was taken to a sponging-house. Here he said, in a calmly superior manner, that the affair would probably take a few days for settlement, that he must have a private room, that the Countess must come to stay with him—there was, then, a Countess—and that she went nowhere without her piano, and that he would pay for the accommodation. All this was matter of bargain and agreement; the Countess came, the piano was dragged upstairs, and she sat down to play. At first the other tenants were pleased with the music, which was loud and brilliant ; when, however, the lady continued to play until midnight they remonstrated, but ineffectually. It was four in the morning when she desisted. At nine they knocked at the Count’s door. No answer. They knocked again. No answer. They broke open the door; the room was empty. The barred window looked upon the roof of an outhouse, from which the drop into the street was easy. The Count had filed away the bars, while the Countess kept on playing to drown the noise of the file. By four o’clock the work was done, the birds flew out together. There was then no telegraph, so the fugitives took post to Dover and were across in Calais before the creditors knew what had happened. Nothing more, my friend informs me, was ever heard of Count or Countess, But one thing was certain, the man had succeeded in getting credit for everything, and he went off with a considerable amount of plunder. Clubs of the better sort had begun to be formed. In 1837 there were twenty- five in all, viz. the Albion, Arthur’s, Alfred, Athenaeum, Boodle’s, Brooks’s, Carlton, Clarence, Cocoa-tree, Crockford, Garrick, Graham’s, Guards’, Oriental, Oxford and Cambridge, Portland, Royal Naval, Travellers’, Senior United Service, Junior United Service, University, West Indian, White’s, and Windham. These clubs are intended exclusively for noblemen, gentlemen, the services, and the professional classes. No person engaged in trade, not even a great merchant, could hope for admission. This exclusiveness gradually broke down in some of the clubs, but has been maintained in others, while the great increase in the number of clubs has widened the limits of admission in all directions.
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