A Friendly Caution To The Silk Mill Workers of London

“There’s many a praying penitent and well might they pray in this place! For I ne’er saw the like of such as gaws on ere!”

“You’ve been to chapel?” asked Nathaniel Spate,

“Aye! I’ve been!” replied Bart Tobin, “once and went no more after spying them great lumpen things stood in front of men as ‘ad lost their sweet hearts and their wee ones. An them never knowing when they may see them more, whether in this life or the next!”

“You talk of the coffins?”

“The coffins! Placed on the ground in front of them wots been condemned to hang, an them set there a-gazing on ’em all through the service!The wailing and groanin’ an gnashin’ of teeth that went on in there! I ardly ad heart to utter the creed!”

“Christ ave mercy?”

“Christ ave mercy!”

“Lord ave mercy?”

“Lord ave mercy!”

“An the union rep? Wot ‘ad ‘e to say about all this?”

“Im? Why he ‘ardly said nothin’ but he wore a terrible look on his pallid face, dreadful it were, pure lunatick! And him sat there awww the while, staring at his coffin, put on the bench beside ‘im, till iz face were cold and still like a grave image!”

“He’s to hang then?” Nathaniel enquired eagerly, for this was news to him, Owen nodded. The news had run throughout Newgate prison like wildfire, the Union Rep was to hang for his part in occasioning an unlawful gathering and inciting a riot, the like of which had ne’er been seen this side of a chartist’s hanging.

“It only remains for the recordings to be read an then he’s for the long-drop, word is his will be a special occasion, Marwood ‘as been brought down from Lincoln for the purpose”

Each man looks at the other and then across the exercise yard at the Union Rep who now stands close by the visitors grate, deep in conversation with a modestly dressed and highly respectable looking woman. The Union Rep smokes from his pipe at intervals and from time to time holds it aloft; he is smiling and looks to be in rude health. He is smartly turned out as becomes a man of his stature, he even laughs occasionally. In short there is nothing in him that would suggest to any passerby that he is destined for the gallows this week hence, t’is very strange. “We’re for a riot then?” opines Owen, Nathaniel nods, a wide smile making all the difference to his pinched and half-starved features. A riot dear reader? In a place such as this? What folly! What suicidal wickedness! Step closer dear reader to the visitor’s grate and witness the earnest conversation twixt the prisoner and his ‘beloved’.

“Aggie Brandt, Hernione Bradley, Martha Watts,Edna Ryley, these are the women holding both tinder box and dynamite, they will take up their positions tonight when all are asleep. Arthur Thorpe, Sam Distleman, Jack Gyp, Thomas Skarry, turnkeys all, these are the men that have hidden both muskets and bludgers, and when the signal is given they will do their part, only make sure” and hear the Union Rep still smilling, his gaze intense, pauses “Make sure Esmeralda, that by tomorrow’s morn you have done yours” smiling brightly Madame Guacamoley reaches through the bars of the prisoner’s grate and gently squeezes the Union Rep’s hand.

“The eminent politician has taken to his bed with the street walker’s lurgy and now Sir Molesworth stands in his stead, and I ere he’s taken a fancy to Eliza Garrett”

The Union Rep chuckles at this,”Little Eliza?! Sweet Gove!He’s in for a rude awakening!”

Madame Guacamoley let rip a mirthless chuckle, “He’s already ‘ad it! I hear each time he called for her to clean the fireplace grate or bring some dish or t’other into the library,there’d be banging and crashing to be heard and raucous cries of distress such as no woman could ever make! He’s bruised from ‘ed to toe by now, for all that they say he has a passion for ‘er! From scullery maid to house keeper in three months! Mayhap he’ll be easier to negotiate with Thomas my love, else all is lost!” she squeezes his hand once more and smiles brightly, but there is stark worry in her eyes for t’is a terrible risk he takes.

The Union Rep shrugged, “I’ve seen two hundred men transported and a hundred hanged and all for protesting their lack of safe working conditions, scarcity of wages and of work. M’lord treats his horses better than his workers! Mayhap Molesworth i’ll be different, we’ll see.”

“If you die the comrades will lose all heart! And don’t these leeches on the flesh of the poor know it! Be careful my love!”

With that Esmeralda Guacamoley squeezes his hand once more and is gone, the Union Rep watches her elegant receding figure as it proceeds down the poorly lit alleyway and then disappears. Now, he thinks smiling all the while to himself, the dice are in play and let us proceed to the matter at hand…

Of Wild Roses & Narrow Vestibules

Lady Grid-Iron was tired, she was tired of reading the bible day in, and day out (and of trying to look demure whilst doing it).Tobias had developed an abiding fascination with the book of Exodus, particularly where it pertained to the sacking of Egypt, indeed he had memorised the entire chapter and never tired of reciting it to both her and the servants. She was tired of crocheting purses and sewing ribbons on bonnets, the common pass time of women born high and low throughout the realm, supposedly,(when in tarnation would she get the time to clean her Winchester rifle?), most of all she was tired of London (give me the prairies any goddamn day of the week!). But she dared not let the irritation show, for one thing, she was married to the honourable Lord Grid-Iron, and that required a degree of ladylike finesse, a degree of turning out, she had hitherto not much required.

And then, of course, there was Francis, her negro page boy, why his eyes became liquid, unfathomable pools, if he stood in Lord Grid-Iron’s presence for longer than thirty minutes, and what was worst she knew what he was thinking. He loved a good hunt, in fact he had a gift for it having been born, raised and enslaved in the Sudan (by Arab Militia men). He had been sold to a plantation owner in the Americas and subsequently freed by the underground railway. The potential consequences of his patent and potent distaste for Lord Grid-Iron might have terrified her, had he not been recruited by the Pinkerton Detective Agency and then assigned to her by Allan Pinkerton himself. “Mah-dear” she cooed, smiling sweetly at the big, old, galoot she had married, “Ah-m tired”

“Tired m’dear? Damn it! I’ve invited Lord Montaperti to brunch! Who’ll entertain him?”

“Montaperti? Why? Such a strange little man. If I but once turn my back on him I catch him rubbing the silk of my gown between his fingers, like a common dressmaker!”

Lord Grid-Iron chortled, ” He is a common dressmaker my dear! He’s in textiles, yes! Quite common and very rich, and since we both have an uncommon fascination with the great unwashed he will lunch with us this morning!”

“And what of the mill worker’s strikes my love? Countess De Lacey tells me all sorts of terrible things about them. Is it true they’ve threatened to burn down the mills unless their working conditions improve and their wages are raised?”

“Not entirely my dear, they’ve threatened to dynamite them. You know, I sometimes wonder why we ever bothered improving the cost of living. Since Lord Aberdeen became Prime Minister we’ve cut the beer duty tax, introduced ‘the right to buy your own berth in the workhouse’ policy and introduced two further alms-giving days. We had much rather they kept their little ones in the industrial schools we’ve reformed, is it our fault they choose to put them to work? The proles are their own worst enemies”

“Ah-shall have cook send up a pot of Earl Grey and some of those pastries Mademoiselle Lefevre bakes, she really is the most delightful find”

“Most delightful” the great galoot replied with a lascivious twinkle in his eye, Kitty Grid-Iron feigned a yawn and fluttered her lashes watching his face grow flush beneath their influence, delicately discarding her embroidery, she lifted her satin skirts and minced over to him, pecking him most delicately on the cheek she sighed,

“Toby mah-dear I do so tire of these interminable brunches with interminably boring elevated tradesmen, promise me my love that this will be the last one…for a while” her large, brown, doe’s eyes met his watery blue ones and as ever he blushed and became a little flustered, “My dear” another delicate peck on his hirsute cheek and she was gone.

He gave no thought to regularly attending Parliament, though he had fought tooth and nail for his seat in the lower chamber, and certainly none as to how he should persuade the mill workers not to make good on their promise to blow up every Silk Mill in London. Kitty supposed the British government would have the infantry open fire as per usual (all the really big guns were stranded some place in the Crimea). And then of course there were the little boat trips to New South Wales, the judiciary had that down to a fine art; caught stealing a loaf of bread? New South Wales. Arrested for rioting against poor pay and conditions? New South Wales. Kitty supposed that sooner or later they’d run out of penal colonies and then where would they send them? The America’s were now independent.

“You sent for me m’aam” Maggie made a small curtsy, little Maggie, so neat and pristine in her prim little mob cap and prissy blue gown complete with frilly white apron, it made Lady Grid-Iron want to scream,”Did you sleep well Maggie? You look awful peaky this morning”

“Yes M’aam” said she, her eyes downcast, “I slept as well as might be expected, thank you m’aam”

“Lay out the primrose coloured water-silk and the satin slippers will you? And then you may run my bath”

Maggie curtsied,” Will you need me to fix your hair m’aam?” Kitty shook her head, “My hair’s fine, would that my contemplations were so”

“Contemplations m’aam?” Kitty smiled wryly, four years had been the most time she had ever spent on any operation in the United States of America. She’d been married seven years, widowed three, out on the hunt for secessonists in Alabama for four, and all of that had been a walk in the park next to being married to Lord Grid-Iron (two years and three and a half days,forty minutes and thirty seconds).”M’aam I couldn’t help but to notice the brooch you always wear, excuse me for asking but m’aam that lettering, what does it mean?”

Kitty’s eyes narrowed, she smiled brilliantly and in that moment she seemed most unlike her feminine, demure self, “Numquam Somni? It’s Latin child, it means, ‘I never sleep’, I’m a lot like you in that respect mah-dear” she said, hugging the child who was her maid very gently.

My Little Pony

“Will Scroggins cough up?” Emile asked with a smirk, they’d had no problem setting the fire, since old man Scroggins hadn’t fixed the roof. But he’d been thoroughly suspicious of the miraculous appearance of Boodoo and his fire cart, the instant the conflagration really got going.

“E’ will if he wants ‘is fires putting out” Bert replied, “What’s ‘e taking us for? Clambering up them ladders requires a great deal of expertise, if ‘e don’t like fires ‘e should fix ‘is roof, fancy a beer?”

“Nah, but I will take a glass of sherry, where’s Boodoo?”

“Behind you”

Emile turned round to see Boodo delivering a swift kick to a pitiful looking young lad who’d crept quietly up behind him,

“Dig your sly fingers into my back pocket will you?! Hook it Milty!”

“But I was only thinking to ask you something”

“Oh was you? Thinking to ask me the way to New South Wales was you? You’d better HOOK IT!”

Milty slunk away his arms hanging temporarily by his sides as he wriggled his way through the crowded pub and out the door.

“You didn’t need to be doing that, Milty’s mum’s took bad, been laid up in bed with the cholera for the past week ”

“I bet. The water round ‘ere is minging and she has more than a fleeting acquaintance with gin laced beer that one”

“That’ll be the reduction in beer duty, Mrs Hayes ‘as been talking on it something rotten, ‘er custom has dropped at the nunnery.”

Boodoo chuckled, “Reckon she’ll lower ‘er prices?”

Emile shook his head, “Birch rods she uses, soaked in tubs of fresh cold water, to keep ’em pliant, costs a deal of money to do that. It’s a gent’s nunnery, cost-price ain’t in it; how’s your sister I ‘ere she’s gone into service”

Boodo shrugged, ” She’s cut me off. She says she has no liking for the company I keep and then of course there was the fire”

Emile’s blue eyes twinkled, he stroked his moustache pensively,”What? St Bacchanalia’s asylum? How much did you make on that one?”

Boodo frowned, he rubbed both his hands over the stubble on his head and considered,

” T’was a mere trifle…forty shillings”

Emile whistled, “forty shillings, well I never, there’s a great deal to be said for fixing the roof whilst the sun is shining, particularly when it comes to setting fires”

Boodoo shrugged, “Fancy a glass of sherry?”

Emile nodded “I’ve got a job for you which requires an increased skill set and a certain degree of expertise, if you’ve a mind to do it, we can discuss it over a glass”

Wading carefully through the crowded pub they made their way over to the bar where Boodo’s associate, Bert Marsh, was already seated with a glass of sherry. Sitting down alongside him they looked the pub over, business was booming without a doubt, though Emile couldn’t help but to note that few were drinking beer. For it was taken as a given, that if Lord Aberdeen’s government was giving anything away to the poor, he had to want something for it. And so here they all sat drinking sherry and gin paying twice over the odds what they would have on beer.

” Well, well my boys!” said Bert, his face all rosy and flushed after five glasses of sherry “You’ll never guess what Donny Doyle’s gone and done now! He’s definitely for the rope this time!They found his landlady laid up in the cellar…in pieces ”

“Will you keep it down?” Boodoo hissed, he glanced around “There might be beaks in ‘ere there’s no telling”

Bert nearly fell off his stool with laughing, “It’s a beak what told me! What’s you done with ‘er? They asks him, and you know what he replies? I was merely painting her miniature, if it’s anything to do with you” Bert looked fit to die from laughing, though it certainly wouldn’t have been a laughing matter for Danny’s landlady.

Emile and Boodoo looked at each other, Danny Doyle, coerced supplicant at the altar of Gove, ex-member of the Rouge Bull Posse and currently a miniature painter extraordinaire. If ever there was a man with a speedily increasing skill set it was him.