Part 98 (1/2)
”Walk in, gentlemen,” exclaimed the proprietor, ”and see the surprising young woman over whom the element of fire has no control!”
Tom and Bob accepted the invitation. Entering the caravan, they were received by an interesting young female, apparently not more than eighteen years of age, with a courteousness of manner far beyond what could have been expected from an itinerant exhibitor.
So soon as a sufficient number of spectators had congregated within the vehicle, the female Salamander commenced her exhibition.
Taking a red-hot poker from the fire, she grasped it firmly, and drew it from head to point through her hand, without sustaining the smallest injury!
~~311~~~ ”Will you permit me to look at your hand?” asked Dashall.
The girl extended her hand,--the palm was moist, and seemed to have been previously fortified against danger by some secret liquid or other application, now reeking from its recent contact with the flaming weapon.
An uncivilized b.u.mpkin accused her of deception, a.s.serting that the poker was not heated to the extent represented.
”Touch and try,” answered the girl. He did so, and the cauterizing instrument gave a feeling (although not very satisfactory) negative to his a.s.sertion.
”The mystery,” continued Dashall, ”of resisting the impression of tire, certainly originates in the liquid by which your hand has been protected.”
”I shall answer your observation,” said the Salamander, ”by another performance.”
She then dipped her fingers into a pot of molten lead, and let fall upon her tongue several drops of the metallic fluid, to the no small amazement and terror of the company; and as if to remove the idea of precautionary application, she after a lapse of five minutes, repeated the same extraordinary exhibition, and finally immerged her naked feet in the boiling material.
The inscrutable means by which the Salamander executed these feats with the most complete success and safety, were not to be divulged; and as neither of our respectable friends felt desirous of emulating the fair exhibitant, they declined the importunity of further inquiry.
”This is, indeed,” said Dashall, as they resumed their walk, ”the age of wonders:--here is a girl who can bear to gargle her mouth with melted lead, put her delicate feet into the same scalding material, and pa.s.s through her hands a flaming red-hot poker! I am inclined to believe, that were the present an age of superst.i.tion, she might be burnt for a witch, were she not happily incombustible. For my own part, I sincerely hope that this pyrophorous prodigy will never think of quitting her own country; and as I am a bachelor, I verily believe I should be tempted to make her an offer of my hand, could I flatter myself with any chance of raising aflame, or making a match with such uninflammable commodity.
Only conceive the luxury, when a man comes home fatigued, and in a hurry for his tea, of having a wife who can instantly take out the heater for ~~312~~~ the urn with her fingers,--stir the fire with ditto--snuff candles with ditto--make a spit of her arm, or a toasting fork of her thumb! What a saving, too, at the was.h.i.+ng season, since she need only hold her hand between the bars till it is red-hot, thrust it into a box iron, and iron you off a dozen children's frocks, while an ordinary laundress would be coddling the irons over the fire, spitting upon them, and holding them to her cheek to ascertain the heat before she began to work.”
”And,” observed the Squire, taking up his friend's vein of humour, ”if the young lady be as insensible to the flames of Cupid as she is to those of Vulcan, she might still be highly useful in a national point of view, and well worthy the attention of the various fire-offices.”
”Exactly so,” replied his Cousin,--”how desirable for instance would it have been at the late alarming fire in Gracechurch-street, to have had a trustworthy person like her, who could very coolly perambulate the blazing warehouses, to rescue from the flames the most valuable commodities, or lolling astraddle upon a burning beam, hold the red-hot engine pipe in her hand, and calmly direct the hissing water to those points where it may be most effectually applied. In our various manufactories, what essential services she might perform.
In gla.s.s-houses, for instance, it is notorious that great mischief sometimes arises from inability to ascertain when the sand and flint have arrived at the proper degree of fusion. How completely might this be remedied, by merely shutting up the female Salamander in the furnace; and I can really imagine nothing more interesting, than to contemplate her in that situation, dressed in an asbestos pelisse, watching the reproduction of a phoenix hung up in an iron cage by her side, fondling a spritely little Salamander, and bathing her naked feet in the vitreous lava, to report upon the intensity of heat. Much more might be urged to draw the attention of government to the propriety of retaining this anti-ignitible young lady, not only for the benefits she may confer upon the public, but for the example she may afford to others of her own s.e.x; that by a proper exertion of courage, the most ardent sparks may be sometimes encountered without the smallest inconvenience or injury.”
~~313~~~ Indulging in this playful vein of raillery, they now reached that part of the City Road intersected by the Regent's Ca.n.a.l, where its s.p.a.cious basin, circ.u.mjacent wharfs and warehouses, and winding line of water, with barges gliding majestically on its placid wave, where lately appeared open fields arrayed in the verdure of nature, afforded full scope for remark by Mr. Dashall, on the gigantic design and rapid accomplishment, by commercial enterprize, of the most stupendous undertakings.
”This work of incalculable public utility,” said Mr. Dashall, ”sprang into being with the alacrity of enchantment;--the same remark may apply to every other improvement of this vast metropolis, so rapid in execution, that one thinks of the wonderful lamp, and the magnificent palace of Aladdin, erected in one night by the attendant genii.”
Onwards towards ”merry Islington;”{1}--”here,” said Dashall, ”is the New River: this fine artificial stream is brought from two springs at Chad well and Am well, in Hertfords.h.i.+re, for the supply of London with water.
It was finished in 1613, by Sir Hugh Middleton, a citizen of London, who expended his whole fortune in this public undertaking. The river, with all its windings, is nearly 39 miles in length; it has 43 sluices, and 215 bridges; over and under it a great number of brooks and water-courses have their pa.s.sage. In some places this ca.n.a.l is carried through vales, and in others through subterraneous pa.s.sages. It terminates in a basin called the New River Head, close by. From the reservoir at Islington the water is conveyed by 58 main pipes under ground along the middle of the princ.i.p.al streets; and thence by leaden pipes to the different houses. Thus, by means of the New River, and of the London Bridge water-works, every house in the metropolis is abundantly supplied with water, at the expense each of a few s.h.i.+llings only per annum.
1 Thus all through merry Islington These gambols he did play.
John Gilpin.
This village of Islington is a large and populous place, superior both in size and appearance to many considerable towns in the country.
Observe the Angel Inn, celebrated for its ordinary, where you may enjoy, after a country ramble, an excellent dinner on very moderate terms.--Apropos, of the Angel Inn ordinary: some years ago it was regularly every Sunday attended by a thin meagre ~~314~~~ gaunt and bony figure, of cadaverous aspect, who excited amongst the other guests no small degree of dismay, and not without cause. Cognominated the Wolf, he justified his pretensions to the appellation, by his almost incredible powers of gormandizing; for a quantum of viands sufficient for six men of moderate appet.i.te, would vanish on the magic contact of his knife and fork, in the twinkling of an eye; in fact, his voracity was considered of boundless extent, for he invariably and without cessation consumed by wholesale, so long as eatables remained on the table. One day, after having essentially contributed to the demolition of a baron of beef, and devoured an entire shoulder of lamb, with a commensurate proportion of bread, roots, vegetables, &c, he pounced, with the celerity of a hawk, on a fine roast goose, which unfortunately happened to have been just then placed within the reach of his annihilating fangs, and in a very short s.p.a.ce of time it was reduced to a skeleton; having occasion for a few minutes to leave the room, the company in the meanwhile secreted the bones of the goose. The waiter now entered for the purpose of removing the cloth: casting his eyes round the room, he seemed absorbed in perplexity--”What is the matter?” asked one of the company; ”do you miss arty thing?”--”Yes, Sir, the bones of a goose!”--”Why then you may save yourself the trouble of further search; the gentleman just gone out, of modest manners and puny appet.i.te, has devoured the goose, bones and all!”--The waiter lost no time in reporting the appalling fact to his master, who now more than ever was desirous of getting rid of the glutton--but how? it was impossible to exclude him the ordinary, or set bounds to his appet.i.te; the only resource left was that of buying him off, which was done at the rate of one s.h.i.+lling per diem, and the wolf took his hebdomadary repast at a different ordinary: from this also his absence was purchased at the same rate as by the first. Speculating on his gluttony, he levied similar contributions on the proprietors of the princ.i.p.al ordinaries in the metropolis and environs; and if the fellow is still living, I have no doubt of his continuing to derive his subsistence from the sources already described!--Now what think you of Real Life in London?”{1}
1 The wolf, so cognominated, was less censurable for his gluttony than the infamous purpose to which he applied it-- otherwise he had a parallel in a man of sublime genius.
Handel one day entered a tavern in the city and ordered six mackarel, a fowl, and a veal cutlet, to be ready at a certain hour. True to his appointment, he re-appeared at the time stipulated, and was shown into an apartment where covers were laid for four. Handel desired to have another room, and ordered his repast to be served up immediately.-- ”Then you don't wait for the rest of the company, sir?”