Morning journal and courier., 1891-09-26

faring cressets in fogs and by night, with ''lorries" drawn by immense Welsh and Lancashire horses, tandem, with their wonderful loads of the worlds produce.
 Around Brunswick street and the Back Goree swept and crowded the tremendous activities of the then greatest port of the world. Here and there and all about were quaint old inns, famous coffee houses and wondrous snuggeries, where, in a still ear Her time, the old slave traders met; and
 where later the shipmasters came, the
 ''charter parties" for cargoes were execu- ted over rum and jorams, and innumera- ble affairs of sea and land, representing al-, most incalculable values, were settled. Facing all this on Brunswick street, and extending around the length of the two rooms on Back Goree, and on what the English call the first fioor," that one first above the shop CT basement floor. reached by a unique, almost perpendicular, stair case of mahogany steps, balustrades and
 wainscoting, from Brunswick street, was located the American consulate of Flaw thorne's time, then the finest suite of of
 fices;in the great seaport city.
 Following the slender, twisted balus- trades you come to the outer office. It's door is at the street end of the narrow hall. This is "No. 1. Washington Build ings." It was where Wilding, vice con sul, with his one clerk and office messen- ger, enacted the part of a sort of invinci
 ble breakwater to all the tides of wander
 ing and unfortunate fotsam and jetssm
 which set in upon the kind hearted Consul Hawthorne. It is now occupied by one desk set on dangerously high and spindle legs, one boy who squints terribly as he
 whistles worse, and a severe man in chin
 xub bicla nf hnt hasi ami decision in his lips, and clothes that strongly savor of the stable, whose office sign presupposes its owner to be one
 "James Winstanley, Team Owner"
 Big, hulking fellows, with rasping, stuff fly voices, with coats slung over their arms and ferocious but harmless whips-for Liverpool lorrymen never strike their lounge within. There are two huge but
 diminutive psned windows overlooking
 Brunswick street. Two more admit the light from Back Goree. All of them were
 made double, to exclude the deafening chatter of the once busy locality. In one corner, across the angle, is a little iron fireplace with fantastic ornamentation. The narrowest little mantel in all the world is above this, higher than ones
 head. Next to this, set into the thick wall, is a safe like Dutch oven, and its
 
 fit and finish as the door of a frontier
 cowshed. Really curious old appoint
 ments are these, and they were made to remain.
 Between this outer office and the rear apartment was, and is, little covered en- try-a box large enough to hide and hold a half dozen topcoats, hats and mackin- toshes. From this small door opened into Hawthorne's private office, or, rather, opened into another little box of an entry with two doors. One of these opened into Hawthorne's room, and the other gave pas sage to ana from the hallway. Hawthorne never entered the latter door on arriving at the consulate. He always came into
 the outer office with great promptitude of mornings, and, after cheery greetings
 passed to the little closet, where he depos- ited hf. outer garments and immediately entered his private apartment.
 If too closely pressed by forlorn stran- gers. obstreperous sailors, ofScious cap tains, or more unbearable lion hunters, he gently opened his door to the little closet, donned his hat and coat noislessly and disappeared through the side door into the
 hallway, from thence making his exit into Back Goree through narrow and unfre- quented side entrance. When the coast became clear Wilding always knew his messenger would find him either wander ing and musing in old St. Nicholas church yard, conveniently near, or in a certain bakers shop, reached through one or two narrow back streets, "where there was a lunch counter at which one could stand and eat excellent bread and butter and
 cheese" and where the lad Julian might
 usually be found with his now happy father.
 There never could have been a more quaint and tiny room than Hawthorne's
 private office. Honest "Joseph Corkhill Tug Owner" occupies it, and he is now
 the proudest man in England to know that
 his Mersey tugs are for hire in a place so
 rife with associative interest. Above the
 wide, low door iron bars stout enough for a jail run vertically through transom so narrow that between its edges you could scarcely press the fingers of your hand. The fireplace is hardly bigger than a mans hat, but it's foriture, in iron, the moldings and paEelings of pine, and the fine old es- cutcheon nearly cover the entire side of the room. Though the latter is scarcely twelve feet square, a stucco cornice runs l around it's ceiling edge heavy enough for
 lord mayors banquetin9 hall. Two win
 dows of extraordinary size admit light, air | and rugged sort of perspective of an- cient warehouses and storage buildings on | the opposite side of Back Goree.
 I have never found in these old world countries more characteristic windows. Their frames are splayed in the most in teresting manner. When sitting ones
 head is below their lodges These and their sides are splsyed inward at an extra
 ordinary depth and angle. The side splay- ing runs through the ceiling cornice, where the splaying is at once reversed in an outward and upward angle, a window treatment have never previously seen, the latter odd arrangement having almost the effect of skylights in admitting to
 room the upper and almost zenith light from the sky. The glasses are cut in mar row panes, the sashes are slender and hung on all but slender hinges. and quaint lit tie cross section, necessary to the unusual outer opening at the top, is adapted to
 both the purposes of ventilation and an- tique ornament.
 More curious than all else is pine cup | board standing between the fireplace and | the side wall. It extends from the floor | to the ceiling. In the top are few close shelves. In the bottom is cubbyhole, l formerly used as a temporary safe Just above this are several secret drawers, their outer edges made in imitation of narrow,
 molding ribbed paneling. Above these is
 a complex series of ledger racks, protected | by little falling doors. And still above are ucsI of pigeonholes. This was the author
 Hawthorne's repository of manuscripts, of
 personal correspondence, of his quaint,
 genial and often grimly satiric English
 Notes," and of countless odds and ends of
 half created imageries, observations and
 literary suggestions and skeleton plots; all
 secret, sacred and priceless to writer as
 to a maiden are the sweet, trifing tokens
 of first romantic love. This rare old
 cupboard is now 8 receptacle for office
 sweepings, and an ignoble but useful coal | bin.
 Innumerable pictures of Hawthorne in
 his changeful moods, as he sat at his desk
 beneath the windows of this little office,
 come involuntarily into the visitors mind.
 Whether at work upon many of the most
 characteristic personal letters he ever
 penned; romping with his children, who
 often descended like three uproarious in-
 fant graces upon him, in charge of the
 bright faced wife or the uncompromising,
 but every faithful maid, Fanny; listening
 demurely to shipmasters' yarns, or pre-
 tending to solemnly inspect sailors broken
 heads when his own was turned away;
 quarreling in kindly rivalry of objurga-
 ton with his loyal friend, Bright, over the
 merits and demerits of the people, policies
 and institutions of their respective coun- l &r;a for A,,a f<,f fha