The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-03 00:00:00

DEMOLITION OF EXETER CHANGE.

The shadowy little roofed-in thoroughfare ex-
tending from Wellington-street to Catherine-strt el',
Strand, and known to the curious in London
arc3des as
"Exeter Change," has disappeared s ithin
the last few days from the sphere of metropolitan
oddities. The miniature shops, that were always
closed, or imperfectly animated by a doubtful life,
house-fronts, have vanished beneath the hands of the workmen
the with their faded ara-
besqueolate and dusky first-
floor windows, have succumbed beneath the trowel
gimcracktracery
and the pick ; the glass skylight which seemed
never to shed any radiance on the grim solitude
beneath, and nothing better to offer in the
way of
•walls, black and
comfort than a prospect of brick .
beetling, has lost ifs identity in an auctioneer's
" lot," and may possibly in due time
roof the grand
aisle of some small Crystal Palace in a suburban
pleasure-ground; the site lies open to the heavens ;
and light and air are once more seen and felt in a
locality from which they have been long excluded.
The mutation has not been without warning.
' The beadle at whom Punch, some 20 years ago,
used to poke so much fun—the maniacal beadle,
gone melancholy mad with long solitary confine-
ment, and of whom, if we recollect rightly, Mr.
Leech made a sketch, showing him as he glared
from behind the terminal gates like the ghost
of Chunee, the poor elephant in 1826—the
beadle, we repeat, had long since departed, and the
echoes of the passage were only now and then dis-
disturbed by the feet of adventurous errand-boys.
It having been long apparent that to open a shop in
Exeter-change was like going to a rudimentary
school.in bankruptcy, the demolition of the unlucky
avenue has followed as a matter of course.
There are some curious memories connected with
the place. Pennant thought that the great Lord
Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's all-powerful minister,
whom Spencer, the poet, seems to have regarded as
his main enemy at court, had a mansion where " the
Change" afterwards stood, and that he died there.
The bishops of Exeter possessed a palace somewhere
in the immediate neighbourhood, and hence the
frequent occurrence of the name of that episcopal
city in the mid-regions of the Strand. The spot first
became noted as a place of business about the reign
of William 111. ; and it must have been then that
it acquired its title of " Exeter Change." The row
(which stood where Wellington-street now stands)
was a sort of mart for millinery and upholstery : the
milliners occupying the lower floors and the uphol-
sterers the upper. Whether the speculation was a
more fortunate one in those days than in these does
not appear. The place, however, was certainly a
little more lively. Shows were to be seen there,
and in 1721 all London flocked to the Change to
look at a bed which for a time became as celebrated
as the great bed of Ware, though its fame has not
been so permanent. The artist was a Mr. Nowmond
Cony, who valued the work of his ingenuity so
highly that he charged half-a-crown for the privi-
lege of seeing it—not a small sum at that time, nor
even now, when we are accustomed to enjoy for a
whole day the art and industry of all nations for a
shilling. The curtains of this wonderful bed Were
woven of feathers of the greatest variety and
beauty ; the ground representing white damask
mixed with silver, and further ornamented with
vases of flowers and fruit. A purple border, a foot
in breadth, branched with flowers shaded with scar-
let, ran along the curtains, the valance, and the
bases ; and the bed was eighteen feet in height. It
appeared worthy to have been the state bed of a
Sultan. Rather more than half a century later,
Exeter Change saw the lying in state—not in the
showy bed of Me. Newmond Cony, however—of a
noble criminal. In the year 1774, Lord Baltimore
was executed for the abduction of several girls;
and his body was exhibited at the Change previous
to its interment at Epsom.
Subsequently to this the upper part of the houses
over the shops was appropriated to a wild beast
show, which held its ground for many years. A
worse spot for such an exhibition could not have
been selected. The poor animals were cooped up
in narrow, unhealthy cages, where their sufferings
after the free life of the woodland and the desert,
must have been great. The spectacle of animals
which have been accustomed to space and activity
confined within four close walls, imperfectly sup-
plied with air, missing the familiar objects of their
original localities, and pacing wearily to and fro till
the hot spirit is broken by the weight of captivity,
is always a very painful one; but at Exeter Change
it must have been especially so. In the Zoological
Gardens, at the present time, every alleviating cir-
cumstance is introduced ; but this was impossible
in a contracted space surrounded by the dwellings
of a populous city. The discontinuance of the
menagerie was hastened by a terrible conflict which
occurred there on the Ist of March, 1826. It was
on that day that the Indian elephant Chunee, to
which reference has already been made, was killed
as a necessary protection to the public. Elephants
are subject in the spring to a paroxysm of fury,
during which their usual docility entirely disap-
pears. At the time in question the fit came upon
poor Chunee with more than wonted vehemence;
and medicine of extraordinary power was adminis-
tered to him, in the hope of reducing it. All, how-
ever, was in vain ; the animal's rage increased
with every hour; his lunges at the massive timber
bars of his cage became so terrific that
a
portion
of the woodwork was carried away;
and o
atb, lest
alter-
native was left but to put the
be
eas Strand and
he should break loose, get into the
havoc far and wide.
But streets, and carry .
matter to accomplish this de-
But it was no easy .
' sign. Large quantities of arsenic and of corrosive
to the
sublimate were offered
subbeast; but, though
' they were disguised in stances to which he was
partial, he seemed to detect the design,
and refused
swallow put before what was
to him. The brother-
in-law of i'lr. Cross, the proprietor, being known
to be an excellent shot, was now sent for; and he,
in conjunction with a •
gunsmith's assistant, ulti-
mately reinforced
by two soldiers, kept firing at
the elephant for
more than an hour with rifles ;
the keepers at the same time thrusting at the poor
creature with pikes. The charges of the maddened
animal at the bars were so terrific that at one time
he loosened the whole woodwork from its fasten-
ings, aud, had it not been strongly lashed together
with ropes, he would have burst his way
through. In the very height of his rage and
agony, however, he exhibited a remarkable do-
cility to the commands of his keeper; placing
himself, when ordered to do so, in a customary
posturo, which happened to be a favourable one for
• 0, when
aiming at the most vital parts. Exceptlas?
thus influenced by the keeper, he turned fire. A 1 his back
I
to t he bars, so as to keep his head out of
this while Mr. Cross was frantically hurrying from
place to place, in the hope of getting the assistance
of heavier firearms and more rifles, but in vain—
an inability which to us in 1863, when )ifie,,, mid
cannon are as common as blsekbrlrries, seems as-
tonishing. On the return of the proprietor the
elephant was dead, having received between one
and two hundred bullets in his body. The second
volume of llone's " Every Day Book" contains a
striking sketch by George Cruikshank of poor
Chunee, as he lay dead just within the shattered
bars of his den ; and a very elaborate and interest-
ing account of the catastrophe, from the pen of
Hone himself, accompanies the woodcut.
Shortly after this sickening affair the menagerie
was removed, and the more modern Exeter Change
built, though not exactly on the same spot. That
in its turn has now disappeared, and the neigh-
I bourhood will be the better for its demolition.