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"I have just been talking with him.” widow, slightingly, "they count among them"Indeed ?" said the tidy woman. "Ho! I selves. They do not count among us. Mr. wonder Mr. Battens talked!"

Battens is that exceptional that he have written to the gentlemen many times and have worked the case against them. Therefore he have took a higher ground. But we do not, as a rule, greatly reckon the old gentlemen."

Pursuing the subject, I found it to be traditionally settled among the poor ladies, that the poor gentlemen, whatever their ages, were all very old indeed, and in a state of dotage. I also dis

She had a way of passing her hands over and under one another as she spoke, that was not only tidy but propitiatory; so I asked her if I might look at her little sitting-room? She willingly replied Yes, and we went into it to-covered that the juniors and new comers pregether: she leaving the door open, with an eye as I understood to the social proprieties. The door opening at once into the room without any intervening entry, even scandal must have been silenced by the precaution.

It was a gloomy little chamber, but clean, and with a mug of wallflower in the window. On the chimney-piece were two peacock's feathers, a carved ship, a few shells, and a black profile with one eyelash; whether this portrait purported to be male or female passed my comprehension, until my hostess informed me that it was her only son, and "quite a speaking one."

"He is alive, I hope ?"

"No, sir," said the widow, "he were cast away in China." This was said with a modest sense of its reflecting a certain geographical distinction on his mother.

"If the old gentlemen here are not given to talking," said I, "I hope the old ladies are?not that you are one." She shook her head. cross."

"How is that ?"

"You see they get so

"Well, whether the gentlemen really do deprive us of any little matters which ought to be ours by rights, I cannot say for certain; but the opinion of the old ones is they do. And Mr. Battens he do even go so far as to doubt whether credit is due to the Founder. For Mr. Battens he do say, anyhow he got his name up by it and he done it cheap."

"I am afraid the pump has soured Mr. Battens."

"It may be so," returned the tidy widow, "but the handle does go very hard. Still, what I say to myself is, the gentlemen may not pocket the difference between a good pump and a bad one, and I would wish to think well of them. And the dwellings," said my hostess, glancing round her room; perhaps they were convenient dwellings in the Founder's time, considered as his time, and therefore he should not be blamed. But Mrs. Saggers is very hard upon them."

"Mrs. Saggers is the oldest here ?" "The oldest but one. Mrs. Quinch being the oldest, and have totally lost her head."

"And you ?"

"I am the youngest in residence, and consequently am not looked up to. But when Mrs. Quinch makes a happy release, there will be one below me. Nor is it to be expected that Mrs. Saggers will prove herself immortal.”

"True. Nor Mr. Battens."
"Regarding the old gentlemen," said my

served, for a time, a waning disposition to believe in Titbull and his trustees, but that as they gained social standing they lost this faith, and disparaged Titbull and all his works.

Improving my acquaintance subsequently with this respected lady, whose name was Mrs. Mitts, and occasionally dropping in upon her with a little offering of sound Family Hyson in my pocket, I gradually became familiar with the inner politics and ways of Titbull's Alms-Houses. But I never could find out who the trustees were, or where they were: it being one of the fixed ideas of the place that those authorities must be vaguely and mysteriously mentioned as "the gentlemen" only. The secretary of "the gentlemen" was once pointed out to me, evidently engaged in championing the obnoxious pump against the attacks of the discontented Mr. Battens; but I am not in a condition to report further of him than that he had the sprightly bearing of a lawyer's clerk. I had it from Mrs. Mitts's lips in a very confidential moment, that Mr. Battens was once "had up before the gentlemen" to stand or fall by his accusations, and that an old shoe was thrown after him on his departure from the building on this dread errand ;-not ineffectually, for, the interview resulting in a plumber, was considered to have encircled the temples of Mr. Battens with the wreath of victory.

In Titbull's Alms-Houses, the local society is not regarded as good society. A gentleman or lady receiving visitors from without, or going out to tea, counts, as it were, accordingly; but visitings or tea-drinkings interchanged among Titbullians do not score. Such interchanges, however, are rare, in consequence of internal dissensions occasioned by Mrs. Saggers's pail: which household article has split Titbull's into almost as many parties as there are dwellings in that precinct. The extremely complicated nature of the conflicting articles of belief on the subject prevent my stating them here with my usual perspicuity, but I think they have all branched off from the root-and-trunk question, Has Mrs. Saggers any right to stand her pail outside her dwelling? The question has been much refined upon, but roughly stated may be stated in those terms.

There are two old men in Titbull's Alms-Houses who, I have been given to understand, knew each other in the world beyond its pump and iron railings, when they were both "in trade." They make the best of their reverses, and are looked upon with great contempt. They are

little stooping blear-eyed old men of cheerful son, grandson, nephew, or other relative, who countenance, and they hobble up and down the is "a Contractor," and who would think it court-yard wagging their chins and talking to- nothing of a job to knock down Titbull's, pack gether quite gaily. This has given offence, and it off into Cornwall, and knock it together again. has, moreover, raised the question whether they An immense sensation was made by a gipsyare justified in passing any other windows than party calling in a spring van, to take this old their own. Mr. Battens, however, permitting lady up to go for a day's pleasure into Epping them to pass his windows, on the disdainful Forest, and notes were compared as to which of ground that their imbecility almost amounts to the company was the son, grandson, nephew, or irresponsibility, they are allowed to take their other relative, the Contractor. A thick-set walk in peace. They live next door to one another, personage with a white hat and a cigar in his and take it by turns to read the newspaper aloud mouth, was the favourite: though as Titbull's (that is to say, the newest newspaper they can had no other reason to believe that the Conget), and they play cribbage at night. On warm tractor was there at all, than that this man was and sunny days they have been known to go so supposed to eye the chimney-stacks as if he far as to bring out two chairs and sit by the iron would like to knock them down and cart them railings, looking forth; but this low conduct off, the general mind was much unsettled in being much remarked upon throughout Titbull's, arriving at a conclusion. As a way out of this they were deterred by an outraged public opinion difficulty, it concentrated itself on the acknowfrom repeating it. There is a rumour-but it ledged Beauty of the party, every stitch in whose may be malicious-that they hold the memory dress was verbally unripped by the old ladies then of Titbull in some weak sort of veneration, and and there, and whose "goings on" with another that they once set off together on a pilgrimage and a thinner personage in a white hat might have to the parish churchyard to find his tomb. To suffused the pump (where they were principally this, perhaps, might be traced a general sus- discussed) with blushes, for months afterwards. picion that they are spies of "the gentlemen:" to Herein Titbull's was to Titbull's true, for it has which they were supposed to have given colour in a constitutional dislike of all strangers. my own presence on the occasion of the weak concerning innovations and improvements, it is attempt at justification of the pump by the always of opinion that what it doesn't want gentlemen's clerk; when they emerged bare- itself, nobody ought to want. But I think I headed from the doors of their dwellings, as if have met with this opinion outside Titbull's. their dwellings and themselves constituted an old-fashioned weather-glass of double action with two figures of old ladies inside, and deferentially bowed to him at intervals until he took his departure. They are understood to be perfectly friendless and relationless. Unquestionably the two poor fellows make the very best of their lives in Titbull's Alms-Houses, and unquestionably they are (as before mentioned) the subjects of unmitigated contempt there.

As

Of the humble treasures of furniture brought into Titbull's by the inmates when they establish themselves in that place of contemplation for the rest of their days, by far the greater and more valuable part belongs to the ladies. I may claim the honour of having either crossed the threshold, or looked in at the door, of every one of the nine ladies, and I have noticed that they are all particular in the article of bedsteads, and maintain favourite and long-established bedsteads and bedding, as a regular part of their rest. Generally an antiquated chest of drawers is among their cherished possessions; a tea-tray always is. I know of at least two rooms in which a little tea-kettle of genuine burnished copper, vies with the cat in winking at the fire; and one old lady has a tea-urn set forth in state on the top of her chest of drawers, which urn is used as her library, and contains four duodecimo volumes, and a black-bordered newspaper giving an account of the funeral of Her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte. Among the poor old gentlemen there are no such niceties. Their furniture has the air of being contributed, like some obsolete Literary Miscellany, "by several hands;" their few chairs never match; old patchwork coverlets linger among them; and they have an untidy habit of keeping their wardrobes in hatboxes. When I recal one old gentleman who is rather choice in his shoe-brushes and blackingbottle, I have summed up the domestic elegances of that side of the building.

On Saturday nights, when there is a greater stir than usual outside, and when itinerant vendors of miscellaneous wares even take their stations and light up their smoky lamps before the iron railings, Titbull's becomes flurried. Mrs. Saggers has her celebrated palpitations of the heart, for the most part on Saturday nights. But Titbull's is unfit to strive with the uproar of the streets in any of its phases. It is religiously believed at Titbull's that people push more than they used, and likewise that the foremost object of the population of England and Wales is to get you down and trample on you. Even of railroads they know, at Titbull's, little more than the shriek (which Mrs. Saggers says goes through her, and ought to be taken up by Government); and the penny postage may even yet be unknown there, for I have never seen a letter delivered to any inhabitant. But there is a tall straight sallow lady resident in Number Seven, Titbull's, who never speaks to anybody, who is surrounded by a superstitious halo of lost wealth, who does her household work in housemaid's gloves, and who is secretly much deferred On the occurrence of a death in Titbull's, it is to, though openly cavilled at; and it has invariably agreed among the survivors-and it obscurely leaked out that this old lady has a is the only subject on which they do agree

could never hope to hold their own against the Pensioner with his warlike and maritime experience in the past, and his tobacco-money in the present: his chequered career of blue water, black gunpowder, and red bloodshed for England home and beauty.

Before three weeks were out, the Pensioner reappeared. Again he knocked at Mrs. Mitts's

that the departed did something "to bring it on." Judging by Titbull's, I should say the buman race need never die, if they took care. But they don't take care, and they do die, and when they die in Titbull's they are buried at the cost of the Foundation. Some provision has been made for the purpose, in virtue of which (I record this on the strength of having seen the funeral of Mrs. Quinch), a lively neighbour-door with the handle of his stick, and again was ing undertaker dresses up four of the old men, and four of the old women, hustles them into a procession of four couples, and leads off with a large black bow at the back of his hat, looking over his shoulder at them airily from time to time, to see that no member of the party has got lost, or has tumbled down; as if they were a company of dim old dolls.

Resignation of a dwelling is of very rare occurrence in Titbull's. A story does obtain there, how an old lady's son once drew a prize of Thirty Thousand Pounds in the Lottery, and presently drove to the gate in his own carriage, with French Horns playing up behind, and whisked his mother away, and left ten guineas for a Feast. But I have been unable to substantiate it by any evidence, and regard it as an AlmsHouse Fairy Tale. It is curious that the only proved case of resignation happened within my knowledge.

he admitted. But not again did he depart alone; for, Mrs. Mitts, in a bonnet identified as having been re-embellished, went out walking with him, and stayed out till the ten o'clock beer, Greenwich time.

There was now a truce, even as to the troubled waters of Mrs. Saggers's pail; nothing was spoken of among the ladies but the conduct of Mrs. Mitts and its blighting influence on the reputation of Titbull's. It was agreed that Mr. Battens "ought to take it up," and Mr. Battens was communicated with on the subject. That unsatisfactory individual replied "that he didn't see his way yet," and it was unanimously voted by the ladies that aggravation was in his nature.

How it came to pass, with some appearance of inconsistency, that Mrs. Mitts was cut by all the ladies and the Pensioner admired by all the ladies, matters not. Before another week was out, Titbull's was startled by another phenomenon. At ten o'clock in the forenoon appeared a cab, containing not only the Greenwich Pensioner with one arm, but, to boot, a Chelsea Pensioner with one leg. Both dismounting to assist Mrs. Mitts into the cab, the Greenwich Pensioner

sioner mounted the box by the driver: his wooden leg sticking out after the manner of a bowsprit, as if in jocular homage to his friend's sea-going career. Thus the equipage drove away. No Mrs. Mitts returned that night.

It happened on this wise. There is a sharp competition among the ladies respecting the gentility of their visitors, and I have so often observed visitors to be dressed as for a holiday occasion, that I suppose the ladies to have besought them to make all possible display when they come. In these circumstances much ex-bore her company inside, and the Chelsea Pencitement was one day occasioned by Mrs. Mitts receiving a visit from a Greenwich Pensioner. He was a Pensioner of a bluff and warlike appearance, with an empty coat-sleeve, and he was got up with unusual care; his coat-buttons were extremely bright, he wore his empty coat-sleeve in a graceful festoon, and he had a walking-stick in his hand that must have cost money. When, with the head of his walking-stick, he knocked at Mrs. Mitts's door-there are no knockers in Titbull's-Mrs. Mitts was overheard by a Chelsea Pensioner, each placidly smoking a pipe, next-door neighbour to utter a cry of surprise expressing much agitation; and the same neigh-handle. bour did afterwards solemnly affirm that when he was admitted into Mrs. Mitts's room, she heard a smack. Heard a smack which was not a blow.

There was an air about this Greenwich Pensioner when he took his departure, which imbued all Titbull's with the conviction that he was coming again. He was eagerly looked for, and Mrs. Mifts was closely watched. In the mean time, if anything could have placed the unfortunate six old gentlemen at a greater disadvantage than that at which they chronically stood, it would have been the apparition of this Greenwich Pensioner. They were well shrunken already, but they shrunk to nothing in comparison with the Pensioner. Even the poor old gentlemen themselves seemed conscious of their inferiority, and to know submissively that they

What Mr. Battens might have done in the matter of taking it up, goaded by the infuriated state of public feeling next morning, was anticipated by another phenomenon. A Truck, propelled by the Greenwich Pensioner and the

and pushing his warrior-breast against the

The display on the part of the Greenwich Pensioner of his "marriage-lines," and his announcement that himself and friend had looked in for the furniture of Mrs. G. Pensioner, late Mitts, by no means reconciled the ladies to the conduct of their sister; on the contrary, it is said that they appeared more than ever exasperated. Nevertheless, my stray visits to Titbull's since the date of this occurrence, have confirmed me in an impression that it was a wholesome fillip. The nine ladies are smarter, both in mind and dress, than they used to be, though it must be admitted that they despise the six gentlemen to the last extent. They have a much greater interest in the external thoroughfare too, than they had when I first knew Titbull's. And whenever I chance to be leaning my back against the pump or the iron

railings, and to be talking to one of the junior ladies, and to see that a flush has passed over her face, I immediately know without looking round that a Greenwich Pensioner has gone past.

WONDERFUL MEN.

in a church porch for a fault of youth in his one hundred and fortieth year, and died by accident when he was one hundred and fifty-two; Henry Jenkins may have led a horse laden with arrows to the battle of Flodden when twelve years old, and may have lived through the struggles of the Reformation and the Revolution, dying at the age of one hundred and sixty-nine, when the political constitution which remains to the ROGER BACON says, he has spoken with present day was finally set up; and Kintigern, several persons worthy of credit, who knew a better known as Saint Mungo of Scotland, may man aged nine hundred years! This man reached have died when one hundred and eighty-five this age by means of a sovereign preservative. years old. But belief in these and similar inThe truth of this fact is established by evidence, stances of marvellous longevity, is only a pleasing doubt of which is not permissible, for the man exercise of imagination which is not forbidden obtained a certificate of the fact, in the year by any warnings of scientific improbability. 1200, from Pope Alexis the Third, necessarily When public honours have been paid to cenand officially Infallible. The Sibyl Erythrea, tenarians of this category, there is some excuse according to Phlegon - De Mirabilibus et for credulity. Parr lies in Westminster Abbey. Longævis-lived ten hundred years. Matthew Jenkins was buried by national subscription. Paris has recorded, in his History of England, The poor old woman to whom the Empressthat Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew, was re- Queen of Germany paid a visit-no doubt with cognised in this country in the year 1229. Less an eye to pictorial effect, because her Majesty strong food for faith than these narratives from heard she was sorry she had become too infirm English history may be obtained from the annals to go out to see her sovereign-was probably a of Portugal. Lopez de Castenada, King of genuine centenarian. Philippe Herbelot was, Portugal, being, in the year 1535, Viceroy of it may be believed, one hundred and fourteen, India, a man was brought to him, who, it was when, as a centenarian pensioner, he presented proved by testimony, had already lived three Louis the Fourteenth with a bouquet on his hundred and thirty-five years. This tercen- birthday. What have you done," asked the tenarian had renewed his youth several times king, "that you have reached so great an age?" from hoary age, and had thrice changed his hair," From the age of fifty, please your majesty, I his teeth, and his complexion. His name was have shut my heart and opened my cellar." The Hugo de Acuna. A physician, who felt his pulse, sarcasm was so merited, that if it never were testified that he had all the vigour, as he had spoken it ought to have been. In despotic the black hair and black beard, of a young man, governments one of the arts of governing is the in his three hundred and thirty-fifth year. If art of getting up shows and scenes; and in we could but get back this lost secret of growing France, where the party uppermost has always young again, we all might have the pleasure of been despotic, there have occurred some theabelieving in Acuna, Erythrea, and Cartaphilus!trical displays of reverence for extreme old age. Meanwhile, we may turn to personages whose On the 23rd of October, 1789, the National longevity is of less difficult belief, although tax- Assembly was sitting with M. Freteau in the ing credulity very heavily. A dozen persons chair, when it was announced that "a man, aged might be picked out from the pages of serious one hundred and twenty years, wished to see the authors on Longevity, whose united ages would assembly which had freed his country from the equal the eighteen hundred and sixty-three years bonds of slavery." The Abbé Gregoire proposed of the Christian era. It is, indeed, recorded that out of respect for age the members of the that one Mac Cream died in England in 1696, assembly should rise up on his entering: a proaged two hundred. However deficient this posal which passed with acclamation. group of cases may be in satisfactory proofs, centenarian was led in by his family, and the there is no scientific improbability connected members rose. Amidst great applause he walked with them. The Science of Life knows nothing up to an arm-chair in front of the secretaries of any sovereign preservative of youth, or of table, and he was requested to put on his hat. any elixir for making the old young, but it com- He produced his certificate of baptism, proving pares the periods of gestation, of growth in that he was born at Saint Sorbin, of Charles height, and in breadth, and of decay among the Jacques and Jeanne Bailly, on the 10th of mammals, and concludes that man is a mammal October, 1669. He had maintained himself by built to last some ninety or a hundred years: his labour, and had fulfilled all the duties of his and who, in favourable circumstances, may last station, until he was in his one hundred and there is no saying how long, beyond his natural fifth year, when the king gave him a pension of term. Physiology, in a word, furnishes no two hundred livres. The assembly voted him a grounds for doubting the existence of men contribution; and the author of a plan of of nearly two hundred years. Haller, Du-national education suggested that the august ferand, and Flourens, the authorities on the subject of Longevity, indeed, allege reasons for expecting their appearance in favourable circumstances. Thomas Parr may have done penance

The

old man should be lodged in the Patriotic School and waited upon by the pupils of all ranks, especially by the children whose fathers were killed in attacking the Bastille. "Do whatever

you like with him," exclaimed M. de Mirabeau, hearsay. The registrars tabulate whatever they "but leave him free." The president then said are told; their informants write down what to the old man, "The assembly is afraid lest they are told; and thus hearsay is added to the length of the sitting should fatigue you, hearsay-none of the parties knowing in general and therefore you may now withdraw. May anything accurate about the matter; for registries you long enjoy the sight of your country become of baptism are rarely consulted, and do not inentirely free.' clude records of birth, so that he is a wise child who knows his own birthday. Nobody in England and Wales even pretended in 1861 to be a single decade over a hundred years old.

Napoleon Bonaparte, when First Consul, decorated two centenarians with the medal of the Legion of Honour, before a large assembly in the nave of the Hotel of the Invalides. The First Consul placed them near himself, and took them home to dine with him.

Paragraphs are perpetually appearing in the newspapers recording the deaths of centenarians. For several years I used occasionally to write to the newspapers which circulated these stories suggesting how desirable it would be to obtain and publish proofs of the dates of birth or baptism; but in no instance were these forthcoming. I have personally known three centenarians and several nonogenarians; but I have not yet found the wise child among them who could prove the date of his birth or baptism. An old Scotch woman, whom I knew in 1833, in Ellon, Aberdeenshire, could only prove her age by saying she well remembered seeing the soldiers marching north to fight the battle of Culloden,

The restored Bourbons did not of course forget the effect of these scenes upon an imaginative nation. On the 25th of August, 1822, the equestrian statue of Louis the Fourteenth was inaugurated upon the Place of Victories. In front of the statue, an arm-chair was placed for Pierre Huet, the Father of the French army. He was dressed in the uniform of the regiment in which he had served, the Royal Cavalry. The expression of his countenance was venerable and handsome, and he wore a long white beard, and his voice was strong and sonorous. In his hundred and seventeenth year he had pre-in 1745, "when she was a gay bit lassie o' ten served all his faculties; and his conversation or twal." A Scotch shipowner, believed to be was very agreeable. The Prefect of the Seine, ninety-two, whom I knew twenty years ago, was on presenting him with a cross of honour in the always led by hearing my name to pour forth name of Louis the Eighteenth, said: the vials of his anti-patronage wrath upon the "Contemporary of Louis the Fourteenth re-memory of an illustrious namesake of mine who ceive this symbol of honour! The king decorates in you the Father of the French army. Born a subject of the great king, you have seen the generations succeed each other, and you are a witness that his reign, like his glory, is immortal.”

The old man said he felt deeply an occurrence so glorious, in such a long life. Then walking across the place with a firm step to the platform of the ministers and marshals, lie received their congratulations: "My sons, my dear sons," he said, "live long, live as long as I have done, to love and serve France." These shows of respect for age are characteristic of the art of governing by scenes.

led the unpopular side in the Kirk Courts of ninety or a hundred years ago; but he disliked talking about his age, said nothing respecting the date of his birth, and cut the subject short by declaring wearily and querulously, "I sometimes think God has forgotten me." An Aberdeenshire woman of ninety-three, began life as a servant in the household of my great-grandfather, and, after spending sixty years in service in Doctors' Commons, London, returned to her native place to live upon her savings. My grandfather and father she knew little or nothing about, but her eyes sparkled and her voice laughed when she told tales of her first master,Our own registrars regularly publish reports what a grave man he was when standing in his and population tables which tell us how many Sunday's best and broad bonnet as an elder centenarians have recently died, and how many beside the begging plate. As for the date were in a certain year alive among us. For of her birth, I might find it in the books instance, a newly published blue-book says there of the parish; she only knew what she had were of us English folks, in the year 1861, been told. including us all, babies and grandpapas, eighteen million nine hundred and fifty-four thousand four hundred and forty-four. There were of us, fifty men and one hundred and twenty-seven women, over a hundred years old. The Welsh folk numbered in that year one million one hundred and eleven thousand seven hundred and eighty; and five men and nineteen women among them were over a century old. London, with more than twice the population of Wales, had three fewer centenarians; or twenty-one to twenty-four. But these statements, notwithstanding their official authority, and although they are quoted by writers and orators as if they were their articles of faith, are somewhat deficient in logical weight. The evidence for them is mere

A man in his ninety-seventh

year, who is resident on the south coast of England, once gave me an insight into the changes which may happen to a man who has never left the spot on which he was born during the lapse of a century. Seeing him looking sadly at the sea, I asked him "what he was looking at ?" and he said to me, "I am looking where I was born." "What! were you born in the sea ?" Yes, there, where the sea is now, in a house which the sea has swept away. The well was hereabouts, somewhere, but I cannot see it now. They change everything. The parish itself has been taken away with all its books." And this is literally true, for the parish church is a ruin of crumbling walls, and the parish contains but one inhabitant, who is

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