E-text prepared by Robert Cicconetti, Stephen Blundell,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
()
Presented by
the Worshipful Company
of Goldsmiths.
1903.
FACTS
FOR THE
KIND-HEARTED OF ENGLAND!
AS TO
THE WRETCHEDNESS
OF THE
IRISH PEASANTRY,
AND
THE MEANS FOR THEIR REGENERATION.
BY JASPER W. ROGERS, C.E.
LONDON:
JAMES RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY.
1847.
FACTS
FOR THE
KIND-HEARTED OF ENGLAND.
In my twentieth year my first visit was madeto London—how long since need not be said, lest Imake discoveries. I arrived at the "Swan withtwo necks," in Lad Lane, to the imminent peril ofmy own one, on entering the yard of that thenfamous hostelry, the gate of which barely allowedadmission to the coach itself—and first set footon London ground, midst the bustle of some half-dozencoaches, either preparing for exit, or dischargingtheir loads of passengers and parcels.
Four "insides" were turned out, and eight "outsides"turned in—I, amongst the unfortunates ofthe latter class, taking possession of the nearest pointI could to the coffee-room fire. It is to be recollectedthat in those days one had but four chances in hisfavour, against perhaps forty applicants for the interiorof the mail—and he who was driven in winter,by necessity of time, to the top of a coach in Liverpool,and from thence to Lad Lane, and foundhimself in the coffee-room there unfrozen, might bewell contented. So felt I, then,—and doubly sonow, as I think of the dangers of flood, and road,[4]and neck, which I encountered in a twenty-sixhours' journey, exposed to the "pelting of thepitiless storm,"—for it snowed half the way.
Dinner discussed, and its etceteras having beenpartaken, in full consciousness of the comfortswhich surrounded me, contrasted with the discomforts,&c. from which I had escaped,—I sank intoan agreeable reverie; and during a vision,—I mustnot call it a doze,—composed of port wine and walnuts—theinvigorating beams of Wallsend coal—anoccasional fancied jolt of the coach—the threemouthfuls of dinner, by the name, I had gotten atOxford—and the escape of my one neck, when, gooseas I was, I presented it where two seemed to be anessential by the sign of the habitation and the dangersof the gate,—I was aroused by a crash, somethinglike the noise of the machine which accompaniesthe falling of an avalanche or a castle, or somesuch direful affair at "Astley's;" and starting up,I thought,—had the coach upset? but, much to mygratification, found myself a safe "inside." Stillcame crash after crash, until I thought it high timeto see as well as hear. "What on earth is the matter?"said I to the first waiter I met, as I descendedfrom the coffee-room, and got to the door of the"tap," or room for accommodation of the lowergrade of persons frequenting