Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-26
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS.
Edward Wakeman's Second and Last
Article on the Novelist
THE OLD LIVERPOOL CONSULATE.
Venerable st. Andrews Church and Fa-
vOrite Old Book Store.
ROCK PARK. THE HOME OF THE CONSUL
rcoRREsPoxDExcB OF THE D1sPATcH.l

CORRESPONDENCE OF DlSPATCH.1
LONDON, ENGLAND, Sept. 15.-It always
thrills the heart of an American traveller tc
see the blazon of soaring eagle with oul
national motto, ''E pluribus unum, " stream
ing from its regal besk, whether it be well
or i'll painted, upon the escutcheons adorn.
ing the Office doors or inner apartments Of
our consular representatives in foreign
lands
The one discovered in the old Washington
buildings, Liverpool, and which disclosed
the very apartment where Nathaniel Haw.
thorne had been our consul from August,
1858, to September, 1S57-of which 1 was al
once able to make proof-was the most well
come one my own eyes had ever beheld. 1t
had been painted upon tin or zinc, and
nailed securely to the long, narrow panel,
which had been made to exactly cover, be-
tween the old fashioned fireplace and the
tinv projection of a mantel above. Half a
century of English coal smoke had all but
obscured its rich Vandyke tints.
With the weather-beater Englishman' S
CHEEKY permission, my handkerchief and
some petroleum, 1 soon had the fine es-
cutcheon glowing in the original beauty
and significance.
BUSY COMMERCIAL PLACE
In Hawthorne's time Washington build
ings-which is a single huge building 'front.'
ing the river to the south, Brunswick street
on the west and the Back Goree on the
north-was one of the structural lions of
Liverpool Beneath its great Moorish
riverward piazza scores of merchants did
mighty business in ship chandlery. The
Offices above belonged to the cotton kings
and the great ship owners and shipping
merchants of Liverpool Every room in
the vast hive swarmed with head men and
clerks. and roared with blatant and profit
able rivalry.
Opposite the piazza were forests of masts,
busy wharves and thoroughfare packed
night and day, under fiaring cressets in fogs
and by night, with ''lorries' drawn by i'm
mense 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
w-onderous snuggerieS, where, in a still ear
lier time,
THE OLD SLAVE TRADERS MET,
and where later the shipmasters came, the
charter parties" for cargoeS were executed
over rum and iorams.
Facing all this on Brunswick street, and
extending around the length of the two
rooms on Back GOree, and on what the En-
glish call the first floor" that one first
above the shop or basement floor, reached
by a unique, almost perpendicular, stair
case of mahogany stems, balustrades and
wainscoting, from Brunswick street, was
located the American consulate of Haw-
thorne's time, then the finest suite of Offices
IN the great seaport city.
Following the slender, twisted balus-
trades YOU come TO the outer office. Its
door is at the street end of the narrow hall.
This is ''No. l. Washington Buildings 1t
was where Wilding, Vice Consul, with his |
one clerk and OtICe messenger, enacted the |
part OF a sort of invincible breakwater to |
all the tides of wandering and unfortunate |
tiotsam and ietsam which set in upon the |
kind hearted Consul Hawthorne 1t is now
occupied bv one desk set on dangerously
high and spindle legs, one boy who squints |
terribly as he whistles worse, and severe
man in chin whiSkers, pucker of stern but
heSitant decision in his lips, and clothes
that strongly SAVIOR of the stable, whose
office sign presupposes its owner to be one
James Winstanley, Team Owner"
ARRANGEMENT OF THE ROOM.
Big, hullzing fellows, with rasping,
srutfy voices, with coats slung over their
arms and terocious but harmless whips
for Liverpool lorrymen never strike their |
horses. more honor to them,-doze and |
lounge within.
There are two huge but diminutive |
named windows overlooking Brunswick |
street Two more admit the light from |
Back GOree. All of them were made |
double, TO exclude the deafening clatter of !
the once busy locality. In one corner, i
across the angle, is little iron fireplace |
with fantastic ornameutation. The mar
rowesU little mantel in all the world is |
above this, higher than ones head. Next \
TO this, set into the thick wall, is safe like
i Dutch oven, and its iron door is as
wOndrOUs in bolts, hinges, fit and finish as
The door of frontier cowshed. Really
curious old appointments are these, and
they were made to remain.
Between this outer office and the rear /
apartment was and is, a little covered en-
trv--a box large enough to hide and hold a |
half dozen topcOats, hats and mackintoshes.
From this a small door opened into Haw-
thorne's private Office or rather opened /
into another little box of an entry with two
doors. One of these opened into Haw-
rhorne's room, and the other gave passage
TO and from the hallway.
THE CoNsUL'S S REGULAR HABITS.
Hawthorne never entered the latter door
on arriving at the consulate. He always
came into the outer office with great promp-
tirude of mornings, and, after CHEEKY greet
ipgs, passed to the little closet, where he
deposited his outer garments and immedi-
atelv entered his private apartment
If too closely pressed by forlorn strangers,
obstreperous sailors, officiouS captains or
more unbearable lion hunters, he gently
opened his door TO the little closet, donned
his hat and coat noiselessly and disappeared
through the side door into the hallway,
from thence making his exit into Back
Goree through a narrow and unfrequented
side entrance When the coast became
clear Wilding always knew his messenger
would find him, either wandering and mus
ing in old St Nicholas churchvard, con-
venientlv 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 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 place so rife
with associative interest.
SOMETHING LIKE A JAIL.
Above the wide, low door iron bars stout
enough for a Jail run vertically through
transom 50 narrow that between its edges