Читать книгу The Children's Book of London - G. E. Mitton - Страница 8

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To begin with, the streets of London are not paved with gold; but I need not have said that, for nowadays the very youngest child knows it. It was Dick Whittington who first imagined anything so foolish; but then he was only a country lad, and in his days there were not the same opportunities for finding out the truth about things as there are now. There were very few books for one thing, and those there were cost a great deal of money, and would hardly be likely to come in Dick's way; so that if there was by chance a book which described London as it was then, it is not at all probable that he would have seen it. There were no photographs, either, to show him what London was really like, so, of course, he had to make up ideas about it himself, just as you who live in the country and have heard people talking about London do now. Are the stories you invent at all like the stories Dick Whittington made up for himself? You can't answer because you're not writing this book, so I must answer for you. Perhaps you think London is a place where there are no lessons to do, and where there is always a great deal of fun going on; where you can go to see sights all day long; the huge waxwork figures at Madame Tussaud's, as big as real people; and lions and tigers and elephants and bears at the Zoo; and you think that the boys and girls who live in London spend all their time in seeing wonderful things.

If this is what you think, some of it is true enough. There are a great many wonderful things to be seen in London, and if you want to hear about them at once you must skip all this chapter and a great many others besides, and go on to page 241, where you will find them described. But if you want to know what London itself is really like you must wait a little longer. The best people to tell you would be the children who live in London; they will read this book, and, of course, they could answer all your questions, but they would not all answer in the same way.

Some would say: 'Oh yes, of course we all know the Zoo, but that's for small children; we are quite tired of a dull place like that, where everyone goes; we like balls, with good floors for dancing, and programmes, and everything done as it is at grown-up balls; and we like theatres, where we can sit in the front row and look through opera-glasses and eat ices. Madame Tussaud's? Yes, it's there still; we went to it when we were quite little babies, but it's not at all fashionable.'

And another child might say: 'I don't mind driving with mother in the Row when I'm really beautifully dressed.'

But I'll tell you a secret about the little boys and girls who talk like this: they are not really children at all, they never have been and never will be; they are grown-up men and women in child shapes, and by the time their bodies have grown big they won't enjoy anything at all. Master Augustus will be a dull young man, who hates everybody, and does not know how to get through the long, dreary day; and Miss Ruby will be a mere heartless woman, who only cares to please herself, and does not mind how unhappy she makes everyone else. And all this will be because their foolish father and mother let them have everything they wanted, and allowed them to go everywhere they liked, and that is not at all good even for grown-up people, and it is very, very much worse for children.

There are, however, many other sorts of children in London, and it is rather interesting to hear what they think of the town in which they live. For instance, there are the children of people who are not at all poor, who have nice houses and plenty of money, but who are yet sensible enough to know that their children must have something else besides pleasure. If we asked one of their children what he thought of London, he might say: 'I've seen the Zoo, of course, and Madame Tussaud's, and I've been to Maskelyne's Mysteries and the Hippodrome, and they're all jolly, especially the Zoo; but those things generally happen in the holidays: we don't have such fun every day.' A boy or a girl of this sort has really a much duller time than one who lives in the country. London is so big, so huge, that he sees only a wee bit of it.

London is the capital town of England, as everyone knows. In Dick Whittington's time it was not very big, but it has grown and grown, until it is seventeen miles in one direction and twelve in another. You know what a mile is, perhaps; well, try to imagine seventeen miles one after another, end to end, on and on, all streets of houses, with here and there a park, very carefully kept, not in the least like a country park. And all these streets and streets of houses are not very interesting, and in many of them the houses are all alike, built of dull-coloured stone or red brick, or else they are covered with plaster.

There is a great part of London where people only go to work, and from which they come away again at nights. In the mornings hundreds and hundreds of men pour into this part as fast as the trains can bring them, and go to their offices, which are in great buildings, many different offices being in one building; and the streets are filled with men hurrying this way and that, always in a hurry. There is no one standing about or idling. Omnibuses and carts and cabs are all mixed up together in the roadway, until you would think it was impossible for them ever to be disentangled again. And now and then some bold man on a bicycle dares to ride right into the middle of it all, between the wheels and under the horses' noses, and how he ever gets through without being crushed up as flat as a paper-knife is a wonder!

At nights, when the men have done their day's work, they are in as much of a hurry to get out of this part of London, which is called the City, as they were to get into it in the morning. They go by cabs and omnibuses and trains back to their homes and their children, and the City is left still and silent, with just a quiet cat flitting across the street, and making a frightened jump when the big policeman turns his lantern on to her.

The children of rich people seldom see this part of London. Perhaps their father goes there every day, and they hear him talk of the City, but it is like another town to them, so vague and far away it seems. These children probably have lessons with their governess at home, and when twelve o'clock comes they go for a walk. When they open the front-door they see a long street, stretching both ways, filled with dark, dull-looking houses just the same as their own. The street pavement is made of wood, which is quieter than stones, and when the cabs run past they make very little sound. If the children are lucky they live in a square, and there is a garden in the middle, with iron railings round it, and everyone who lives in the square has a key to open the gate; but it must not be left open, or other people would get in and use the garden too. It has green grass in it and flower-beds, and it is all very prim and proper, and not at all interesting; and, worst of all, the dear dogs, Scamp and Jim, cannot go there, even when they are led by a string. The gardener would turn them out, for he imagines they would kick about in his flower-beds and rake out the seeds. This is not the sort of garden that a country child would care for. But Jack and Ethel are not country children; they are quite used to their garden, and like it very much.

We can see them start on their morning walk with Miss Primity, their governess. Both the children wear gloves—they never go out without them—and in the street they walk quietly; but when they have passed down the street and got into Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens, they can run about as much as they like. In the Gardens there is a big round pond, where Jack can sail his boat; and on Saturdays the water is covered with white sails, and even men come down and join in the sport, making their toy boats race against one another. The boats are often quite large, and the scene is very gay and pretty. There are a great many ducks, which clamour to be fed; and there are other children there too. These may be friends of Jack's and Ethel's, and they can play together, and Ethel can show her new doll, and Jack can boast of all the things he means to do when he grows up. The Gardens are very nice, but it is rather dull always having the same walk in the same place every day, and sometimes the children get a little tired of it, and are glad when a half-holiday comes and an aunt or uncle carries them off to see some of the wonderful things of which London is full.

There is another part of London of which we have not yet spoken. We have heard of the City and of the West End—the City, where business men work, and the West End, where rich people live; but there is also the East End, lying beyond the City, and the people who live here are nearly all poor. If you asked any of the children of the East End if they had seen Madame Tussaud's or the Zoo, they would grin, and say, 'Garn!' and if you told them about these things they might say, 'Ye're kiddin', ye're,' which is their way of saying they don't believe you, and think you are telling stories. In the streets where these children live everything is dirty and nasty. A number of families live together in one house, perhaps even in one room, for I have heard of rooms where each family had a corner. The women never do anything more than they can help. They never mend their old dresses, or wash themselves or their children, or try to cook nicely; they do nothing. They spend the day sitting on their dirty doorsteps, with the youngest baby on their knees, and their hair is all uncombed, and their dresses are filthy and torn, and they shout out to other women across the street, and make remarks on anyone who happens to pass. The poor little baby gets dreadful things to eat—things that you would think would kill an ordinary child—bits of herring or apple, and anything else its mother eats, and sometimes even sips of beer or gin. If it cries, it is joggled about or slapped, and as soon as ever it is able to sit up, it is put down on the pavement among a number of other dirty, untidy children and left to take care of itself. When a little girl is seven she is thought quite old enough to look after all the younger ones, and on Saturdays she goes off with other little girls, pushing a rickety old perambulator or a wooden cart, with perhaps two babies in it and several smaller children hanging on to her skirt; and she goes down the foul street and on until she comes to a tiny little bit of ground, where there are seats and some bushes and hard paths, and this is a playground. But what do you think it really has been? A graveyard, and there are still graves and big stones, showing that people have been buried there long years ago. But the children who play in it do not mind this at all; they sit on the graves, and think that they are very lucky to get this place away from the street. Then the poor little babies are left in their go-carts or perambulators, very often in the sun, with their heads hanging down over the edge, while Liza talks to Bella; and they both put their hair in curl-papers, and show each other any small things they have picked up in the street. They have no need of dolls, for both Bella and Liza have living dolls, which are often very troublesome; but they are quite used to it, and if the live doll cries they just stop talking and rush up to it and push it up and down, or take it out and shake it about for a few minutes, and then put it back again and go on with their talk. Sometimes, not often, they have a feast, and perhaps Bella brings out a dirty bottle which she has picked up, and fills it with water at the fountain; and Liza takes from her pocket an apple and some sticky toffee, and perhaps one of the little ones has a bun. And then the apple is rubbed until it shines with a dirty bit of rag called a pocket-handkerchief, and they all sit down together in a row and share the things; and even the baby has a hard lump of apple stuffed into its mouth, for Liza and Bella do not mean to be unkind to their babies, for they have mother-hearts in them.

Well, of course, there are many other sorts of children in London besides these: there are the children of working men, who are neatly dressed and go out on Sundays with their father and mother; there are chauffeurs' children who live near the garage, or in the mews, where rich people keep their motor-cars or carriages. It is not easy in London to find rooms for cars or carriages close to the house, so a number of stables were built together, making a long yard like a street, and the people who lived near kept their carriages there, but there are fewer carriages now, and often the rooms in the mews are empty or used by outside people, while the cars are kept at some big garage a little distance off. There are many others who are not so lucky as chauffeurs' or coachmen's children; think of the little children who belong to the organ-grinders, and who are taken about in a basket tied on to the grinding organ, with the hideous noise in their ears all day. I wonder that they can ever hear at all when they grow up. Many, very many, of the children have no playground at all but the street, the pavement, where people are passing all the time. They sit on the doorsteps and breathe in the dust, and all their playthings, if they have any—and even their food—are often thick with dust. I have seen a child rubbing a bit of bread-and-jam up and down on the dirty stone before it eats it. But the rich children and the poor children do not often meet, for if the rich children go through the streets in the poorer parts they are in motor-cars or cabs, and in their part of the park there are not many poor children, while in the parks where the poor children go you do not find many rich ones. And though there are parts of London where poor and rich are very near together, yet their lives never mix as the lives of country children do. Very often in the country a child knows the names of all the other children in its village, and who they are and all about them; but in London it is not so. And many rich children grumble all the time if they do not have everything they want, and never think of their poor little brothers and sisters, who would snatch eagerly at many of the things they throw away.

Have you heard the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who piped so wonderfully that he could make anything follow him when he liked, and how he piped so that all the rats ran after him, and he led them to the river and they were drowned? When he asked the mayor and chief men in the town to be paid for what he had done, they laughed, and said: 'No, now the rats are dead, you can't make them alive again; we have got what we wanted, and we won't pay you.' So the piper was very angry, and piped another tune, and all the children in the town followed him; and he led them on and on toward a great mountain, where a cave opened suddenly, and they all went in, and were never seen again. I think if that Pied Piper came to London he would find very many more different sorts of children than ever he found in Hamelin, where—

'Out came the children running:

All the little boys and girls,

With rosy checks and flaxen curls,

And sparkling eyes, and teeth like pearls,

Tripping and skipping ran merrily after

The wonderful music with shouting and laughter.'

There would be London children whose eyes did not sparkle, and who had almost forgotten to laugh, as well as those like the children of Hamelin, who were so bright and so gay.