The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-01 00:00:00

" MRS, LIRRIPER'S LODGINGS,"

The New Christmas Number of " All the
Year Round."

Another pleasant little surprise has been given to
his million readers by Mr. Charles Dickens in anti-
cipation of the coming Christmas. Last year the
enigmatical "nut to crack" was propounded in the
rather bewildering announcement of " Somebody's
Luggage." This year it has come to us in qzite as
questionable a guise, just as oddly as its predecessor,
but coupled with a name so intensely Bcz-like as to
afford a hint, as to the meaning of the intimation,
to the more discerning. " Mrs. Lirriper's Lodg-
ings"—now that we know them to be in plain
terms, nothing less than the new "Extra Christmas
Number" (price fourpence) of Mr. Charles Dickens's
popular weekly periodical of " All the Year Round"
—are absolutely certain to be taken. Upon the
very first of the forty-eight double-columned pages
of the record here telling us all about them, we have
the address of these Lodgings. An address, very con-
veniently, as it happens, in our own immediate neigh-
bourhood. If not "In the Strand! in the Strand!"
at any rate leading out of it. Number Eighty-
one, Norfolk-street, Strand. That is the hence-
forth classic habitat of the dear, kind-hearted old
lady who lets these lodgings. Mrs. Lirriper, my
dear, as she tells us herself in that confidential
prattling gossip in which she relates, at the outset,
How she manages to Carry on the Business, There is
more of the nice old housekeeper of Mr.
Brownlow in " Oliver Twist" about Mrs.
Lirriper, than of the immortal M. Todgers
in " Martin Chuzzlewit." The latter, it will
be remembered, had rather too much of an eye for
the main chance to be entirely pleasant—her bread
too slack, her fish questionable, her anxiety about
the gravy little less than overwhelming. Whereas
Mrs. Lirriper just fairly endears herself to us front
first to last as one of the kindest old souls well
imaginable. Mrs. Lirriper, Major Jackman,
and " the Mite"—(his godson and her adopted
grandchild)—those three imaginary beings, lightly
though they are sketched off by the master hand
of Charles Dickens, we may add at once unhesi-
tatingly to the treasures stored up in the long and
wonderful portrait gallery in which are ranged the
masterpieces of that great delineator of his fellow
creatures. The lodging-house-keeper, the Major
who is her " parlour," and the little human waif
that they have both of them, the dear, delightful
old souls, taken lovingly to their heart of hearts !
Among the more elaborated works of the Artist from
whose hand they emanate, these may rank, let us say,
as some of those marvellous little chalk drawings, or
water-colour sketches, that are sometimes dashed
off with an apparently careless hand, but that con-
' tain touches sometimes here and there transcending
any more ambitiously conceived and executed work
of art. Major Jackman—" Jemmy Jackman"—
who, " though he is far from tall, seems so when
he has his shirt-frill out, and his frockcoat on, and
his hat with the curly brims"—Major Bagstock
would undoubtedly never have condescended
to acknowledge in any military capacity
whatever. Yet is he welcome to us—old
trump as he is—in despite of his du-
bious payments to the good landlady, of his
suspiciously uncertain right to his title, of his lac-
quering his boots and waxing his old moustache.
As for " the Mite," that dear adopted imp of a boy
who is so small at one time that when he is on the
other side of the pembroke table you have to look
under it instead of over it to see him—we don't in
the least wonder at last when kind old Mrs. Lirri-
per announces to the Major that the Mite must go
away from them at last to a Boarding School, we
don't in the least wonder when he comes to tell us
that on making this same announcement, " Bold as
I spoke I saw two Majors and half a dozen
fireplaces !" To read o❑ a little while before this
all about his marvellous achievements as a cal-
-1 culator—in " umtraction" and " tickleication "—to
watch him multiplying fourteen sticks of firewood
by two bits of ginger and a larding needle, or
dividing pretty well everything else there was upon
the table by the heater of the Italian iron and a
chamber candlestick and getting a lemon over !—is,
really, as good as a play. So, too, is the account of
his memorable disappearance one clay when they
thought he was lost—he, all the while, having
only missed his way by following the Monkey
—as the Sergeant of Police explains after-
wards, "him as sweeps the crossing on a round
table." The incident of the attempted suicide
of his young mother and of her premature death
at last in bed at dear, noble, tender-hearted Mrs.
Lirriper's—slightly touched into life though the
sketch is, it is worthy of the masterhand

At last it came in a solemn way—not in a flash but like
a kind of pale faint light brought very slow to the face.
She said something to me that had no sound in it, but I
saw she asked me :
" Is this death ?"

And I says " Poor dear poor dear, I think it is."
Knowingsomehow that she wanted me to move her weak
right hand, I took it and laid it on her breast and then
folded her other hand upon it, and she prayed a good good
prayer and I joined in it poor me though there were no
words spoke. Then I brought the baby in its wrappers
from where it lay, and I says :

"My dear this is sent to a childless old woman. This
for me to take care of."
The trembling lip was put up towards my face for tho
Tart time, and I dearly kissed it.
"Yes my dear" I says. " Please God I Me and the
Major."

Idon't know how to tell it right, but I saw her soul
brighten and leap up, and get free and fly away in the
grateful look.

As a vivid contrast to which, take the incidental
mention by Mrs. Lirriper before that when the
forsaken young mother is sickening for her death,
Mrs. Lirriper's mention then of the Parlour's
efforts to secure quiet for the poor invalid.
" What ever," exclaims the good old lady, " I should
have done without the Major when it got about
among the organ-men that quiet was our object is
unknown, for he made lion and tiger war upon
them to that degree that without seeing it I could
not have believed it was in any gentleman to have
such a power of bursting out with fire-irons walk-
ing sticks water-jugs coals potatoes off his table the
very hat off his head, and at the same time so
furious in foreign languages that they would
stand with their handles half turned fixed
like the Sleeping Ugly—for I cannot say Beauty."
Here, however, is a wonderfully droll description
of one of Mrs. Lirriper's experience of " Servant
Gals"—a description that we may head, adopting
the happy phrase of old Joe Gargery