Mystic London; Or, Phases Of Occult Life In The Metropolis - free ebook by Charles Maurice Davies

AUTHOR OF "ORTHODOX" AND "UNORTHODOX LONDON," ETC.

Hamlet. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND. 1875. [ All rights of Translation and Reproduction are reserved. ] LONDON: SAVILL, EDWARDS AND CO., PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN....

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INTRODUCTION.

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to say that I use the term Mystic, as applied to the larger portion of this volume, in its technical sense to signify my own initiation into some of the more occult phases of metropolitan existence. It is only to the Spiritualistic, or concluding portion of my work, that the word applies in its ordinary signification. C. M. D....

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LONDON ARABS.

Of all the protean forms of misery that meet us in the bosom of that "stony-hearted stepmother, London," there is none that appeals so directly to our sympathies as the spectacle of a destitute child. In the case of the grown man or woman, sorrow and suffering are often traceable to the faults, or at best to the misfortunes of the sufferers themselves; but in the case of the child they are mostly, if not always, vicarious. The fault, or desertion, or death of the natural protectors, turns loose

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EAST LONDON ARABS.

Notwithstanding my previous experiences among the Western tribes of Bedouins whose locale is the Desert of the Seven Dials, I must confess to considerable strangeness when first I penetrated the wilderness of Bethnal Green. Not only was it utterly terra incognita to me, but, with their manifold features in common, the want and squalor of the East have traits distinct from those of the West. I had but the name of one Bethnal Green parish and of one lady—Miss Macpherson—and with these slender data

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LONDON ARABS IN CANADA.

In the previous chapter an account was given of the Arabs inhabiting that wonderful "square mile" in East London, which has since grown to be so familiar in men's mouths. The labours of Miss Macpherson towards reclaiming these waifs and strays in her "Refuge and Home of Industry, Commercial Street, Spitalfields," were described at some length, and allusion was at the same time made to the views which that lady entertained with regard to the exportation of those Arabs to Canada after they should

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WAIFS AND STRAYS.

Among the various qualifications for the festivities of Christmastide and New Year, there is one which is, perhaps, not so generally recognised as it might be. Some of us are welcomed to the bright fireside or the groaning table on the score of our social and conversational qualities. At many and many a cheery board, poverty is the only stipulation that is made. I mean not now that the guests shall occupy the unenviable position of "poor relations," but, in the large-hearted charity that so wide

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A LUNATIC BALL.

One half of the world believes the other half to be mad; and who shall decide which moiety is right, the reputed lunatics or the supposed sane, since neither party can be unprejudiced in the matter? At present the minority believe that it is a mere matter of numbers, and that if intellect carried the day, and right were not overborne by might, the position of parties would be exactly reversed. The dilemma forced itself strongly on my consciousness for a solution when I attended the annual ball a

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A BABY SHOW.

There is no doubt that at the present moment the British baby is assuming a position amongst us of unusual prominence and importance. That he should be an institution is inevitable. That he grows upon us Londoners at the rate of some steady five hundred a week, the Registrar-General's statistics of the excess of births over deaths prove beyond question. His domestic importance and powers of revolutionizing a household are facts of which every Paterfamilias is made, from time to time, unpleasantl

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A NIGHT IN A BAKEHOUSE.

Alarmed at the prospect of "a free breakfast table" in a sense other than the ordinary one—that is, a breakfast table which should be minus the necessary accompaniment of bread, or the luxury of French rolls—I resolved to make myself master, so far as might be possible, of the pros and cons of the question at issue between bakers and masters at the period of the anticipated strike some years ago. I confess to having greatly neglected the subject of strikes. I had attended a few meetings of the b

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A LONDON SLAVE MARKET.

There is a story called "Travellers' Wonders" in that volume which used to be the delight of our childhood, when the rising generation was more easily amused and not quite so wide-awake as at present. The point of the narrative is, that a facetious old gentleman named Captain Compass beguiles a group of juveniles—who must have been singularly gullible even for those early days—by describing in mysterious and alien-sounding terms the commonest home objects, such as coals, cheese, butter, and so o

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TEA AND EXPERIENCE.

I was walking the other day in one of the pleasant western suburbs, and rashly sought a short cut back; when, as is generally the case, I found that the longer would have been much the nearer way home. Before I knew it, I was involved in the labyrinths of that region, sacred to washerwomen and kindred spirits, known as Kensal New Town; and my further progress was barred by the intervention of the Paddington Canal, which is spanned at rare intervals in this locality by pay-bridges, to the great d

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SUNDAY LINNET-SINGING.

There is something very Arcadian and un-Cockney-like in the idea of linnet-singing in Lock's Fields. Imagination pictures so readily the green pastures and the wild bird's song, and Corydon with his pipe and his Phyllis, that it seems a pity to disabuse that exquisite faculty of our nature so far as to suggest that the linnets of which we speak are not wild, but tame and caged, and the fields very much less rural than those of Lincoln's Inn. This was the announcement that drew me to the New Kent

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A WOMAN'S RIGHTS DEBATE.

There never was a time when, on all sorts of subjects, from Mesmerism to Woman's Rights, the ladies had so much to say for themselves. There is an ancient heresy which tells us that, on most occasions, ladies are prone to have the last word; but certain it is that they are making themselves heard now. On the special subject of her so-called "Rights" the abstract Woman was, I knew, prodigiously emphatic—how emphatic, though, I was not quite aware, until having seen from the top of a City-bound om

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AN OPEN-AIR TICHBORNE MEETING.

When Sydney Smith, from the depths of his barbarian ignorance, sought to rise to the conception of a Puseyite, he said in substance much as follows:—"I know not what these silly people want, except to revive every obsolete custom which the common sense of mankind has allowed to go to sleep." Puseyism is not to our present purpose; but Tichborne-ism is—for it has attained to the dignity of a veritable ism—and we may define it much after the same method, as an attempt, not, indeed, to revive the c

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SUNDAY IN A PEOPLE'S GARDEN.

I have often thought that an interesting series of articles might be written on the subject of "London out of Church," dealing with the manners and customs of those people who patronize no sort of religious establishment on the Sunday. I have seen pretty well all the typical phases of religious London and London irreligious; but these would rather be characterized as non-religious than as irreligious folks. They do not belong to any of the varied forms of faith; in fact faith is from their life

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UTILIZING THE YOUNG LADIES.

Time was when it was accepted as an axiom that young ladies had no object in life but to be ornamental—no mission but matrimony. The "accomplishments" were the sum total of a genteel education, though charged as "extras" on the half-yearly accounts; and all the finished creature had to do, after once "coming out," was to sit down and languidly wait for an eligible suitor. Times changed. And, in England, when we make a change, we always rush violently into an opposite extreme. Woman had a mission

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FAIRLOP FRIDAY.

Amongst those customs "more honoured in the breach than the observance" which are rapidly being stamped out by the advancing steps of civilization, are the institutions which we can yet remember as so popular in the days of our childhood, called pleasure fairs. Like that social dodo in a higher section of society, the "three-bottle man," with the stupid Bacchanalian usages of which he was the embodiment, these fairs are slowly but surely disappearing as education spreads among the masses of the

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A CHRISTMAS DIP.

There are few more exhilarating things, on a breezy spring morning, than a spurt across that wonderful rus in urbe—Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park—for a prospective dip in the Serpentine, where, at specified hours every morning and evening, water-loving London is privileged to disport itself in its congenial element. So congenial is it, in fact, that some enthusiastic individuals do not limit themselves to warm summer mornings, or the cooler ones of springtide and autumn, but bathe all the year

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BOXING-DAY ON THE STREETS.

Boxing-day in the London streets, and especially a wet Boxing-day, can scarcely fail to afford us some tableaux vivants illustrative of English metropolitan life. In a metaphorical and technical sense, Boxing-day is always more or less "wet"—generally more, and not less; but this year the expression is used climatically, and in its first intention. Christmas-eve of the year about which I write was bright and springlike; Christmas-day dismal, dark, and un-Christmas-like; but Boxing-day that year

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THE VIGIL OF THE DERBY.

In those days—happily now gone by—when public strangulation was the mode in Merry England, there was always an evident fascination appertaining to the spot where, on the morrow, some guilty wretch was to expiate his crimes on the gallows. Long before the erection of that elegant apparatus commenced, and generally on a Sunday evening, when decent citizens had newly come from houses of God, where they had heard the message of life, crowds began to collect on that central spot in the heart of the g

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THE WIFESLAYER'S "HOME."

There is something very weird and strange in that exceptional avocation which takes one to-day to a Lord Mayor's feast or a croquet tournament, to-morrow to a Ritualistic service, next day to the home of a homicide. I am free to confess that each has its special attractions for me. I am very much disposed to "magnify my office" in this respect, not from any foolish idea that I am "seeing life," as it is termed, but still from a feeling that the proper study of mankind is man in all his varied as

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BATHING IN THE FAR EAST.

Visions of Oriental splendour and magnificence float across the imagination at the mere mention of the storied East. Soaring above all the routine of ordinary existence and the commonplaces of history, that creative faculty within us pictures Pactolus with its golden sands; or recalls from the legendary records of childhood the pomp of Aladdin's Princess going to her luxurious bath; or brings back to mind the almost prosaic minuteness with which the Greek poet describes the bath of Ulysses when

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AMONG THE QUAKERS.

There is no more engaging or solemn subject of contemplation than the decay of a religious belief. Right or wrong, by that faith men have lived and died, perhaps for centuries; and one cannot see it pass out from the consciousness of humanity without something more than a cursory thought as to the reasons of its decadence. Being led by exceptional causes to take a more than common interest in those forms of belief which lie beyond the pale of the Church of England, I was attracted by a notice in

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PENNY READINGS.

Who has ever penetrated beneath the surface of clerical society—meaning thereby the sphere of divinities (mostly female) that doth hedge a curate of a parish—without being sensible of the eligibility of Penny Readings for a place in Mystic London? When the Silly Season is at its very bathos; when the monster gooseberries have gone to seed and the showers of frogs ceased to fall; after the matrimonial efforts of Margate or Scarborough, and before the more decided business of the Christmas Decorat

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DARWINISM ON THE DEVIL.

It has been said—perhaps more satirically than seriously—that theology could not get on without its devil. Certain it is that wherever there has been a vivid realization of the Spirit of Light, there, as if by way of antithesis, there has been an equally clear recognition of the Power of Darkness. Ormuzd—under whatever name recognised—generally supposes his opponent Ahriman; and there have even been times, as in the prevalence of the Manichean heresy, when the Evil Spirit has been affected in pr

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PECULIAR PEOPLE.

In this title, be it distinctly understood, no reference is intended to those anti-Æsculapian persons who, from time to time, sacrifice to Moloch among the Essex marshes. It is not necessary to journey even as far as Plumstead in search of peculiarity, since the most manifold and ever-varying types of it lie at one's very doors. And here, at the outset, without quite endorsing the maxim that genius is always eccentric, let it be confessed that a slight deviation from the beaten track is generall

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INTERVIEWING AN ASTROLOGER.

For several years—in fact ever since my first acquaintance with these "occult" matters whereinto I am now such a veteran investigator—my great wish has been to become practically acquainted with some Professor of Astral Science. One friend, indeed, I had who had devoted a long lifetime to this and kindred subjects, and of whom I shall have to speak anon; but he had never utilized his knowledge so as to become the guide, philosopher, and friend of amorous housemaids on the subject of their matrim

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A BARMAID SHOW.

The present age, denounced by some ungenial censors as the age of shams, may be described by more kindly critics as emphatically an age of "shows." Advancing from the time-honoured shows of Flora and Pomona—if not always improving on the type—and so on from the cattle show, suggestive of impending Christmas fare, we have had horse shows, dog shows, and bird shows. To these the genius of Barnum added baby shows; and, if we are not misinformed, a foreign firm, whose names have become household wor

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A PRIVATE EXECUTION.

I was quietly fiddling away one evening in the Civil Service band at King's College, as was my custom while my leisure was larger than at present, when the gorgeous porter of the college entered with a huge billet which he placed on my music-stand with a face of awe. It was addressed to me, and in the corner of it was written "Order for Execution." The official waited to see how I bore it, and seemed rather surprised that I went on with my fiddling, and smilingly said, "All right." I knew it was

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BREAKING UP FOR THE HOLIDAYS.

Unromantic as it sounds to say it, I know of few things more disgusting than to revisit one's old school after some twenty or thirty years. Let that dubious decade still remain as to the number of years that have elapsed since I left school. In fact, it matters to nobody when I left it; I revisited it lately. I went to see the boys break up, as I once broke up, and I felt disgusted—not with the school, or the breaking up, but with myself. I felt disgracefully old. In fact, I went home, and began

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PSYCHOLOGICAL LADIES.

There is no doubt that the "Woman's Rights" question is going ahead with gigantic strides, not only in social and political, but also in intellectual matters. Boys and girls—or rather we ought to say young ladies and young gentlemen—are grouped together on the class list of the Oxford Local Examination, irrespective of sex. A glance at the daily papers will show us that women are being lectured to on all subjects down from physical sciences, through English literature and art, to the constructio

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SECULARISM ON BUNYAN.

It is very marvellous to observe the number of strange and unexpected combinations that are continually occurring in that moral kaleidoscope we call society. I do not suppose that I am exceptional in coming across these; nor do I use any particular industry in seeking them out. They come to me; all I do is to keep my eyes open, and note the impressions they make on me. I was humbly pursuing my way one Tuesday evening towards the abode of a phrenologist with the honest intention of discovering my

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AL FRESCO INFIDELITY.

In a series of papers like the present it is necessary, every now and then, to pause and apologize, either for the nature of the work in general, or for certain particulars in its execution calculated to shock good people whose feelings one would wish to respect. Having so long been engaged in the study of infidelity in London, I may, perhaps, be permitted to speak with something like authority in the matter; and I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the policy of shirking the subject is

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AN "INDESCRIBABLE PHENOMENON."

When the bulk of the London Press elects to gush over anything or anybody, there are at all events, primâ facie grounds for believing that there is something to justify such a consensus. When, moreover, the object of such gush is a young lady claiming to be a spirit-medium, the unanimity is so unusual as certainly to make the matter worth the most careful inquiry, for hitherto the London Press has either denounced spiritualism altogether, or gushed singly over individual mediums, presumably acco

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A LADY MESMERIST.

When a man's whole existence has resolved itself into hunting up strange people and poking his nose into queer nooks and corners, he has a sorry time of it in London during August; for, as a rule, all the funny folks have gone out of town, and the queer nooks and corners are howling wildernesses. There is always, of course, a sort of borderland, if he can only find it out, some peculiar people who never go out of town, some strange localities which are still haunted by them; only he has to find

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A PSYCHOPATHIC INSTITUTION.

Reading my Figaro the other day—as I hope I need not state it is my custom devoutly to do—I came upon the following passage in the review of a book called "Psychopathy; or, the True Healing Art. By Joseph Ashman. London: Burns, Southampton Row. We have not the pleasure of being personally acquainted with Joseph Ashman, and we fear that the loss is ours. Judging him through the medium of his book, he must, indeed, be a rara avis.... The one great thing," it went on to say, "that Joseph Ashman wan

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A PHRENOLOGICAL EVENING.

The experience I am about to chronicle occurred when the Beecher-Tilton scandal was at its height; and I was attracted by the somewhat ambiguous title "Burns upon Beecher." Mr. James Burns, the spirited proprietor of the Progressive Library, Southampton Row, having devoted himself to the study of phrenology, has for some time past held a series of craniological séances on Tuesday evenings, at which he "takes off" the head of some well-known person, or your own, if you like, whether you are well-

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A SPIRITUAL PICNIC.

In a volume bearing the title of Mystic London it would seem perchance that Spiritualism, as par excellence the modern mystery, should stand first. I have thought it better, however, to defer its treatment somewhat, working up to it as to a climax, and then gently descending to mundane matters once more ere I close my present work. Of London at this hour, just as of Rome in the later Republic and Empire, it may be safely affirmed that there is in its midst an element of the mysterious and occult

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A GHOSTLY CONFERENCE.

A distinct and well-marked epoch is reached in the history of any particular set of opinions when its adherents begin to organize and confer, and the individual tenets become the doctrines of a party. Such a culmination has been attained by the believers in Modern Spiritualism. For a long while after the date of the now historical Rochester Rappings, the manifestations were mostly individual, and in a great degree limited to such exercises as Mr. Home's elongation, Mrs. Guppy's flight from Highb

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AN EVENING'S DIABLERIE.

Mr. Spurgeon a short time since oracularly placed it on record that, having hitherto deemed Spiritualism humbug, he now believes it to be the devil. This sudden conversion is, of course, final; and I proceed to narrate a somewhat exceptional endorsement of the opinion which has recently occurred within my own experience. There was a time, how long ago it boots not to say, when I considered Spiritualism humbug; and a good deal came in my way which might have led me to the same conclusion as Mr. S

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SPIRITUAL ATHLETES.

I am about for once to depart from my usual custom of narrating only personal experiences, and in this and the two following chapters print the communications of a friend who shares my interest in these matters, and has frequently accompanied me in my investigations into this mysterious Borderland. In these cases, however, he investigated on his own account, and I am not responsible for the conclusions at which he arrives:— "Attracted," he says, "by an article in a popular journal on the subject

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"SPOTTING" SPIRIT MEDIUMS.

"Among the recent utterances of spiritualistic organs is one to the effect that 'manifestations' come in cycles—in 'great waves,' I believe was the actual expression; and of the many fluctuations to which spiritualistic society has been exposed of late is a very prominent irruption of young lady mediums. The time seems to have gone by for portly matrons to be wafted aërially from the northern suburbs to the W.C. district, or elderly spinsters to exhibit spirit drawings which gave one the idea of

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A SÉANCE FOR SCEPTICS.

"Attracted by the prominence recently given to the subject of Spiritualism in the Times , and undeterred by that journal's subsequent recantation, or the inevitable scorn of the Saturday Review , I determined to test for myself the value of the testimony so copiously quoted by believers in the modern marvel. Clearly if certain published letters of the period were to be put in evidence, Spiritualism had very much the better, and Science exceedingly little to say for itself. But we all know that t

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AN EVENING WITH THE HIGHER SPIRITS.

At the head of social heresies, and rapidly beginning to take rank as a religious heresy as well, I have no hesitation in placing modern Spiritualism. Those who associate this latest mystery only with gyrating articles of furniture, rapping tables, or simpering planchettes, are simply in the abyss of ignorance, and dangerously underrate the gravity of the subject. The later development of Spirit Faces and Spirit Forms, each of which I have examined thoroughly, and made the results of my observat

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SPIRIT FORMS.

Some years ago I contributed to the columns of a daily paper an article on Spirit Faces, which was to me the source of troubles manifold. In the first place, the inquirers into Spiritualism, whose name I found to be legion, inundated me with letters, asking me to take them to the house of pretty Miss Blank, the medium. Miss Blank might have been going on till now, holding nightly receptions, without having exhausted her list of self-invited guests; I had but one answer; the lady was a comparativ

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SITTING WITH A SIBYL.

The connexion of modesty with merit is proverbial, though questioned by Sydney Smith, who says their only point in common is the fact that each begins with an—m. Modesty, however—waiving the question of accompanying merit—is a trait which, in my mystic inquiries and devious wanderings, I meet with far more frequently than might be expected. I have just met with two instances which I hasten to put on record, if only to confute those who say that the age in general, and spirit mediums in particula

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SPIRITUALISTS AND CONJURERS.

"How it's done" is the question which, in the words of Dr. Lynn, we want to settle with reference to his own or kindred performances, and, still more, in the production of the phenomena known as spiritual. I have spent some years of my existence in a hitherto vain endeavour to solve the latter problem; and the farther I go, the more the mystery seems to deepen. Of late, the two opposed parties, the Spiritualists and the Conjurers, have definitely entered the arena, and declared war to the knife.

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PROS AND CONS OF SPIRITUALISM.

It has been repeatedly urged upon me on previous occasions, and also during the progress of these sheets through the press, that I should make a clean breast of my own belief or disbelief in spiritualism; that besides being descriptive, I should go one step beyond a mere catalogue of phenomena, and, to some extent at least, theorize on this mysterious and generally proscribed subject. Let me say at the outset that against the proscription of this, or indeed any topic which does not offend agains

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