Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-10-13
TIE LEArHER norrLE.
An American Tourist in the Footsteps of
 MT. Pickwick.

MT. Pickwiok.
 Finding myself in Gravesend, during , recent visit to England. determined to seek that hostlery where the too Amorous Tracy Tupman retired after being tilted by the spinster aunt, and was run to earth by Mir. Pickwick and his friends and discovered eating roast fowl and bacon, and not, as had been expected, looking after the priming of the suicidal pistols.
 Somewhere across the fields I knew 1 lay Gotham, where the Leather Bottle stands, and to which thereafter was con veyed, by the great founder of the club, that stone bearing the mystic letters which the caitiff Blotton had the audacity to translate into "Bill Stumps His Mark" Not very respectfully did I leave Gravesend behind; and after an hours walk, found myself in the diminutive village of Cobham, where every thing is on a small scale, except the epitaphs on the tombstonea The village has a charming nestling air, with its little gentle-winding street of quaint red brick houses, at the furtherest end of which stands the modest Leather Bot | tie opposite the church. And really" added Mir. Pickwick, after half an hours walking had brought them to the will lage: really for misanthrope's choice this is one of the prettiest and most de- sirable places of residence I ever met with;" a statement which I can fully corroborate.
 A pretty, compact white little tene- ment it is, with @ sign swinging over the door portraying Mir. Pickwick, his hand under his coat-tails. and the in- scription, Dickens Old Pickwick Leather Bottle Hotel" There is an over-hanging, well-tiled roof, with a lamp over the door, little shuttered windows at each side and a general air of cosiness. The coffee-room, where the fugitive Tupman was discovered, is un- altered in a feature. From the chronicle which is with us we learn that: "A stout country lad opened door at the end of the passage, and the three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, fur nished with large number of high backed, leather-cushioned chairs of fan tastic shapes, and embellished with a great variety of old partraits and rough ly colored prints of some antiquity. At the upper end of the room was a table with a white cloth upon 1t, we'll covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale and etcete- ras." And there it is still; the passage, and the door at the end of the passage, and a charming old room of some size, very low, and with sort of framed cell ing, its yellow walls grimed with the smoke and steam of Q hundred "ordi- narys."
 It was pleasant, after more than fifty years, to find every thing corresponding so exactly to Dickens description. There are half dozen or so of old high back chairs, no doubt bought in Roches- ter to add ''local color" and correspond with the text; the old portrait of the tea-board pattern and the ancient clock, the only addition to the collection of artistic trophies being colored photo graph of Dickens two pictures of his house at Gad's Hill, and a copy of the Empty Chair" of Luke Fides. Mine host is a dapper and attentive little man, wearing white apron. His liter ary leanings, however, are not consid- erable. Indeed, he admits, with engag- | ing frankness, that he is not well up in Dickens, but as a great many people make inquiries of him, he has ordered a copy of "Piokwick." envied mine host of the Leather Bottle the treat he had before him, though question whether I ever before heard of Dickens being studied as a matter of business.-Once a l WaaL