Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-01-25
At DOTHEBOYS HALL,
Wakeman Searches Out the Old RAM
shackle Made Famous in Dick.
ems Nicholas Eickleby.
GUARDED By SQUEERS SON-IN-LAW
II Still Stands an Ignominious Reminder
Of the Days of School Torture
in Old England.
GUARDED By SQUEERSSON-IE-LAw
PICTURE OF The VILLAGE OF BowEs.
II, envsysrd IN Which the Bones Of ths H,ra Old
Master and Els Family Lila
IooRREsroNDrScE OF TIL. D1srArcH.l

YORK, ENG, Jan. 16.-Probably the
greatest immediate and lasting good ever
done any nation by single work OF fiction
was effected by the Nicholas NickleDy" of
Charles Dickens.
During the early part of the present
century the private schools, and particularly
the boys schools of England. with few
notable exceptions like that of Rugby, were
the most infamous in the world. If there
can be superiority in iufamy, Yorkshire
stood first and best. Dickens himself said
of Its private schoolmasters: Graders in
the avarice, indifference or imbecility OF
parents, and the helplessness Of children;
ignorant, sordid, brutal men, to whom few
cousiderate persons would have entrusted
the board and lodging OF 9 horse or dog;
they formed the worthy cornerstone of
structure which, for absurdity and a mag
nifcent high-minded laissez-aller neglect,
has rarely been exceeded in the world.
how He Came to Write 1t.
How Dickens grand and humane genius
came to espouse the cause of the hosts of
helpless and outraged children IN England
is a pleasing "reminiscences OF his magnlh-
cent literary career. The English-speaklng
cess under the nom-de-plume of BOZ" His
publishers, Chapman s. Hall, of London,
had Immediately engaged another work
from his pen to appear in parts. Its plan
and scope were still subjects for discussion,
and, under the burdens and impositions OF
the Young authors new relation to men and
things, a grlevous and desperate anxiety to
Dickens himself. In this condition of un-
rest and perturbation, there foated into his
IL oF / e
vague childish fancies regarding Yorkshire
schools He tells of these in his own in
imitable way in the last preface written BY
kim for nicholas Nickleby." He says:
/ cannot call to mind. now. how l came o
hear about Yorkshire schools when was not
very robust child sitting in by-places near
Rochester Castle with head full of Partridge,
Strap Tom Pipe and SancAo PAM a; but I
know that my first impressions of them were
picked up at tnat time and that they were
somehow or other connected with suppurared
absress that some boy had come home with. in
consequence of his Yorkshire guide. philoso-
pbe- and friend having ripped il open with an
inky penknifel
The Search for Facts.
Here was an opportunity for a great and
merciful motive in fiction. With a boon
companion, Hablot Browne, Dickens left
London few weeks before Christmas of
1887. The two made 4 thorough pilgrimage
of Yorkshire on the old postchaise routes,
gathering, under all manner of pretenses
every possible fact bearing on the accursed
system; consulting files of old newspapers
In York and neighboring cities for records
o damage suits brought against proprietors
of these schools for cruelty; wheedling his
wsy into this obscure den and forcing his
way into that one; and, at last, in the re-
motest and most dreary portion o Northern
Yorkshire, coming upon nest of the dread
iul places at and near the then thriving
village of Bowes.
Here Dickens remained for time. He
had letters to a yeoman OF the place, soon to
shine as one of the immortals of fiction as
honest John Browdie." He represented
himself as agent of poor widow desirous of
placing her only boy in a quiet country
school. In this way he secured admission
to a number in the vicinity, though shut out
of some ov the wary masters. The school
seeming most suitable as a prototype of
them all, from the personnel of its savage
owner and his family, with wild and desc
late physical surroundings in keeping with
the hopelessness of the school-life of the
place itself, was the Dotheboys Hall, still
standing in Bowes, where Nicholas
Nickleby," his protege in misery the
wretched "Smike," and scores of other help
less young lives, are depicted as undergoing
an almost inconceivable lite of servitude,
starvation and cruelty.
Didn't Tell the Reality.
Investigations showed that ,the horrible
picture drawn was not an exaggeration, aid
bore out Dickens own statementir the orig
inaI preface that "Mr. Squeers and his
school are faint and feeble pictures of an
existing reality, purposely subdued and
kept down lest they should be deemed i'm
possible" This, Dickens second, aud in
IN April, 1928, and finished in October,
1880. At the appearance of the first part he
ran away from London, as he always did, to
remain in hiding until distinct measure of
public avor or disfavor was shown. In the
case of Nicholas Nickleby" his lorgivable
ukulklng was of short duration. The first
d4y's sale of the first part exceeded $4,000
copies.
Not six mouths had passed before the
torture and cruelty 10 helpless scholars in
these remote prison pens were abated, and
before the last chapter of Nicholas Nick
leby' had been read, public feeling. which
in many portions of the country barely es-
capped expression in riot, had anninIlated
every cbild-hell of the Dotheboys Hall va
rlety in England.
Famous and infamous as Dickens made
Bowes, .ew in England had ever before
heard OF the village. To the millions who
learned Bcwes-every object in il, its sur
rnundlugs, and every room in Dotheboys
Hall, by heart-it was purely fctional
town. / asked over 500 intelligent people
In England where Bowes was, and never
found an individual who knew until / came
to kirkby Stephen, in the moorland wilds
of Northeastern Westmoreland, 16 miles
away.
Dead in Its Shell.
Even in that town nobody seemed to
know, until / found a rustic ANTIQUARIAN
vino had at one time discovered an old
Roman coin at Bowes, and who, after a
hard struggle, remembered where it Law.
over beyond wild old Stanemoor Mountain,
dead in Its shell r. as he put it, in ending
an adjuratiou not to cross Stanemoor that
DAY, unless willing to risk being blown from
the road Into.the rock beds o its passes, or
worse, meeting the bowling, ferocious. war
lock hags, which, during every wild noun
tain storm, waylay belated travellers at the
lonely site of Rere Cross. But the pilgrim
age was TO rescue from oblivion the actual
site o! a national infamy. and fix In the real
geography OF literature the location and en-
yirons OF a spot, dim. feeting aud phantom
IKE IN the minds of millions in the Old
World and the New.
No two stout American legs could shrink
from thus, even though the wind fairly
shrleked in its mad way from Solvav Firth
10 the German Ocean, pounding the sides of
Westmoreland moors and feIIs with mighty
balls OF fog which slid and rIcocheted over
Langdale Fell aud Brownber Edge TO re-
bound against the sides of the loftier Stane-
moor heights, and finally be hurled over the
mountain upon dreary, dead Bowes as IL to
crush every remaining silver of its meapey