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Article A QUEER CAREER. ← Page 11 of 13 →
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A Queer Career.
content to take my tobacco through a common short pipe—not exactly common , though for it was one of Fiolet ' s , of St . Oiner—a renowned manufacturer of clay calumets in those ante-briar-root clays . The plebeian perusers of these lines are probably wholly unacquainted with that haunt of the nobility and gentry , the Brill , in Somers Town . It is a street market much affected , I am given to understand , by the aristocracy of this metropolis . I had
lonoknown an establishment in this mart , which , having failed as a porkshop , essayed to derive an income by exhibiting the attractions and accomplishments of three ladies , two alive and one dead and stuffed . The latter was a combination of mummied monkey and dried fish , and was pictorially represented on the huge canvas covering the front of the house as a beautiful creature , floating partially immersed in very green waves through which a scaly extremity terminating in a fish ' s tail could bedimly discerned engaged in brushing her profuse tresses , and contemplating her divine features in a hand-glass , and which presentment is , I believe , the correctly conventional or heraldic
manner of depicting a mermaid . The two living fair ones were—one , the very ugliest female I ever saw in my life , who , from this distinction , was exhibited under the description of the pig-faced lady , and was popularly supposed to feed from a silver trough ; the other , a young person in tights and very short petticoats , and apparently not too many of them . She dined daily in public off tow soaked in naphtha and consumed in an incandescent state , and delighted numerous audiences by lifting five hundred weights at one time
with her back hair , a spectacle which , although—anatomically considered as a demonstration of the muscles of the thorax , might be regarded as instructive—was not particularl y exhilarating . The canvas , which exhibited delineations highly imaginative of these , as of the other , attractions , announced that the price of admission was , " Workinopeople and children one penny , the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood threepence each . " It is not material under which character I enjoyed the display . Well , passing through the Brill one November evening in 1857 , I saw announced at the old shop an entire chancre of performances , the staple of the
new entertainment being a panorama of the Indian Mutiny , then in everybody ' s mind , with an accompanying lecture . I paid the admission fee and entered . The back parlour had been converted into a stage , the shop formed the auditorium . I sat through a very dreary aud not too refined ballet , and when the curtain drew up on the first scene of the piece de resistance representing the Barrack Square at Berhampore , the lecturer stepped from behind the scene in the person of—Mr . Mole ! He was de point
in evening sables , white shirt collar and cuffs . He carried the indispensable wand . He took his place at the orthodox baize-covered table , which was provided with the traditional carafe and tumbler . It was a very good panorama , and my old acquaintance gave us a capital lecture . I shall never forget the sensation caused by his peroration , when with alarms , excursions , explosions , we arrived at the blowing open of the gate of Delhi . "And thusladies and gentlemenat length Cawnpore was avenged . The ti lay prostrate
, , ger , flaccid and powerless , beneath the grip of the Hon , and the glorious cross of St . George floated over the domes and ramparts of the gorgeous city of the Mogul ! " Thereupon the orchestra—a very assertive cornet , and a by no means demonstrative , but rather revnonstrative , fiddle—struck up a few bars of " Eule Britannia . " The men and boys cheered and clapped . The hysterical women and girls wiped their eyes , and Mr . Mole gracefully bowed himself behind the curtain .
I again pass over mauy other avatars . The Exhibition of 1862 saw Mr . Mole on a vacant piece of ground at South Kensington—the gorgeous mansions of Cromwell Eoad occupy it now—in the usual orthodox black , with a very stiff white choker and demonstrative cuffs . He stood on a Windsor chair , the while a myrmidon by his side supported aloft on a pole a hideous cartoon painted on a square framework , displaying the internal economy of the human body . The professor was very— -and disgustingly—learned on chyle , and serum , aud lymph , and described , revoltingly in detail , the whole process of digestion . He called attention to the functions of the pylorus , and sold liver pills at a penny the box . The next year I was marching with my company of volunteers up the race hill at
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
A Queer Career.
content to take my tobacco through a common short pipe—not exactly common , though for it was one of Fiolet ' s , of St . Oiner—a renowned manufacturer of clay calumets in those ante-briar-root clays . The plebeian perusers of these lines are probably wholly unacquainted with that haunt of the nobility and gentry , the Brill , in Somers Town . It is a street market much affected , I am given to understand , by the aristocracy of this metropolis . I had
lonoknown an establishment in this mart , which , having failed as a porkshop , essayed to derive an income by exhibiting the attractions and accomplishments of three ladies , two alive and one dead and stuffed . The latter was a combination of mummied monkey and dried fish , and was pictorially represented on the huge canvas covering the front of the house as a beautiful creature , floating partially immersed in very green waves through which a scaly extremity terminating in a fish ' s tail could bedimly discerned engaged in brushing her profuse tresses , and contemplating her divine features in a hand-glass , and which presentment is , I believe , the correctly conventional or heraldic
manner of depicting a mermaid . The two living fair ones were—one , the very ugliest female I ever saw in my life , who , from this distinction , was exhibited under the description of the pig-faced lady , and was popularly supposed to feed from a silver trough ; the other , a young person in tights and very short petticoats , and apparently not too many of them . She dined daily in public off tow soaked in naphtha and consumed in an incandescent state , and delighted numerous audiences by lifting five hundred weights at one time
with her back hair , a spectacle which , although—anatomically considered as a demonstration of the muscles of the thorax , might be regarded as instructive—was not particularl y exhilarating . The canvas , which exhibited delineations highly imaginative of these , as of the other , attractions , announced that the price of admission was , " Workinopeople and children one penny , the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood threepence each . " It is not material under which character I enjoyed the display . Well , passing through the Brill one November evening in 1857 , I saw announced at the old shop an entire chancre of performances , the staple of the
new entertainment being a panorama of the Indian Mutiny , then in everybody ' s mind , with an accompanying lecture . I paid the admission fee and entered . The back parlour had been converted into a stage , the shop formed the auditorium . I sat through a very dreary aud not too refined ballet , and when the curtain drew up on the first scene of the piece de resistance representing the Barrack Square at Berhampore , the lecturer stepped from behind the scene in the person of—Mr . Mole ! He was de point
in evening sables , white shirt collar and cuffs . He carried the indispensable wand . He took his place at the orthodox baize-covered table , which was provided with the traditional carafe and tumbler . It was a very good panorama , and my old acquaintance gave us a capital lecture . I shall never forget the sensation caused by his peroration , when with alarms , excursions , explosions , we arrived at the blowing open of the gate of Delhi . "And thusladies and gentlemenat length Cawnpore was avenged . The ti lay prostrate
, , ger , flaccid and powerless , beneath the grip of the Hon , and the glorious cross of St . George floated over the domes and ramparts of the gorgeous city of the Mogul ! " Thereupon the orchestra—a very assertive cornet , and a by no means demonstrative , but rather revnonstrative , fiddle—struck up a few bars of " Eule Britannia . " The men and boys cheered and clapped . The hysterical women and girls wiped their eyes , and Mr . Mole gracefully bowed himself behind the curtain .
I again pass over mauy other avatars . The Exhibition of 1862 saw Mr . Mole on a vacant piece of ground at South Kensington—the gorgeous mansions of Cromwell Eoad occupy it now—in the usual orthodox black , with a very stiff white choker and demonstrative cuffs . He stood on a Windsor chair , the while a myrmidon by his side supported aloft on a pole a hideous cartoon painted on a square framework , displaying the internal economy of the human body . The professor was very— -and disgustingly—learned on chyle , and serum , aud lymph , and described , revoltingly in detail , the whole process of digestion . He called attention to the functions of the pylorus , and sold liver pills at a penny the box . The next year I was marching with my company of volunteers up the race hill at