Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1891-09-12
MIR. wAKEMAN's JOURNEYINGs.

MIR. wAKEMAN,S JOURNEYINGS.
Great English seaside Resorts
Bright, Breezy, Historic Brighton
-Old london Mail Coaches-Steam.
ship. Service.
BRIGHTON, ENGLAND, Aug. 81.
To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
With whatever one may be out of sorts
in English travel; whether weariness,
dreariness or positive illness may have
prompted the coming; with whatever des-
peration one may have escaped London
and its irreyocable griminess and hard
ness, sunniness and good natured lazi-
ness possess the soul whenever Padding
ton is left behind and ones face is at last
set toward that most famous of all Eng
lish watering places, bright, breezy, his
toric and glorious old Brighton.
London smoke and dust may blacken
summer skies behind; London fog and
smut may make its millions of hurrying,
marrying humans more fiend-like by day
than by night; the fog and its shapes may
still canter beside your train beyond the
sweet lavender fields of Mitcham; there
may still be black fog at Clapham juno
ton, where the porters below and steam
and puff and get all sorts of people and
all manner of luggage into wrong car
riages; there may be q yellow fog at Croy-
don junction, where the oncoming passen-
gers are as saffrony as pilgrims to Arab
shrines; there may be white fog at Red
Hill Junction, bringing up to the station
with the country yokels the milk-cans and
vegetables the affairs of stepping fields; at
Three Bridges all kinds of fogs may be
Tapping and wringing from their spongy
folds an endlesf ooze, drip and drizzle; and
you may sit through the long passage of
Clayton tunnel like clammy frog in
miasmatic cave; still, when your train has
leaped out of the tunnel, you may nearly
always be certain of the sunshine, cloud
less sky. and a breath of blessed ozone
sweeping strong and clear from farthest
southlands across the tuneful sea.
The knotty kinks in your being are
loosened. The tension of your whole ma
ture, keyed to its highest pitch from resis
tance of the bullyings of briefest London
experiences, relaxes as if by magic. The
hard wrinkles leave your face, and in the
little strip of mirror opposite you see your
own countenance mantled with sunny
smile. Why nota Even if alone and un-
known myriad of goodly companions
have crept in beside you to accompany you
on your journey. They tempt you to rem
inescence, inveigle you with mellow mem
ories, tap at the sunlit windows of your
heart with dalliance and invitation bland.
The little bit of English hill and vale,
stretches of copse, trails of hedge, ribbons
of highway, CLEANS of white cottage wall
and fashef of red tiling, between the tun-
mel and Brighton, are now all too brief for
reminder, rejoinder and zest.
How the odd things and folk of old
Brighton and new come crowding into the
mind! History, romance and song all
send their familiar hosts. There is old
King Canute, SO puffed with his own great
ness that when his chair was placed upon
the Goodwin Sands he commanded the in
coming tida to stay its onward march, and
got for his bravado an inglorious dueking
in the presence of his entire court. The
lordly figure of William, the Norman con-
querer, cannot be disassociated from the
place. Then every school child knows of
Earl Goodwin, earl of Brighton manor,
| who, tempting his sovereign to play the
fool, was choked to death in attempting to
| swallow bread crust The rare old
| Flemish pirates came over once and took
all the town away. Brigthelmston it was
| called in those days, and when it was built
| up again the French came and made
bonfire of it. 1t was time now for Brigh
| ton to be put in a state of defense. So
| they built blockhouse, a gun garden and
four gates, call done of fynte and sand in
| a warlyke manner"
Then came the era of the "Auncient
Mariners" when war ragged for two centu-
ries between landsmen and seamen over
| the election of 'headboroughs" and
councillors" when the "Auncient Mari
ners" swore by the good old rule,
The simple plan
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can,
that they should evermore rule in Brigh-
ton; and the landsmen swore, "Odds fish,
| handspikes and tacklingl" that 'by the
| rood, we'll have our SHARE" the final COM
| promise being that the sea folk should
| elect eight and the landsmen four out of
"the twelve auncientest, gravest and
| wysest inhabitants of the town for assis-
| tants to the constable in every publique
| cause, OuU OI WHICH cdlu6 mduy VI Tue
raciest and most mirth provoking ballads
| that olden England ever knew. In Henry
Wits time, at the dissolution of the mon
| asteries, the manor of Brighton, with the
| rectory and advowson, were given by the
king to Anne of Cleves for life.
About a hundred years ago the London
| mail coaches were bowled down to Brigh-
ton at mad gallop during daylight, and
the present steamship service between
fr,- shoIN x-al
| by a service of packets between Brighton
and Dieppe. The route was advertised as
bringing London and Paris ninety miles
nearer than by way of Dover and Calais,
and trim "pacquet" sailed every evening
the moment the foaming horses dashed up
with the London coach to the "Old Ship"
| inn, and the mails and passengers could be
hustled on board. Half the literature of
| the last century teemed with scenes and
| incidents from these then wonderful old
| journeys, and the crack of whips, the notes
| of the coach horns and the screech of the
wheels down the frosty hillways seem to
float into your carriage window to this
very hour, welcome and melodious still.
But George ", good old DIR. Richard
Russell and Thackery, the three who most
made Brighton famous, send you the clear
est cut faces and most pleasant eompan-
| ions with which to enter Brighton. Who
tina Gum, "'the principal bathing woman"
of Brighton, who once had the honor of
ducking King George, and who can still be
seen here in an hundred buxom prototypes,
as well as her own original self, in weird
crayon drawing, holding pink faced boy
in lawn with chestnut curls, the infant
king of unsavory memory, with the cobalt
sea at her feet, and q lone bathing ma
chine labeled 'Smoaker & Co." in the aw-
full perspective? 1t is sight that will
leave smile on your face past many q
weary journey. Then there was 1.-THE
principal bathing man, who also ducked
King George. He was known to local
fame as ''Old Smoaker," and appears and
reappears deathlessly through old tales
and ballads, ever ripe for use as the tray
cling play actors utility man. He is here
still, bless himl in scores of gray old fell
lows, bronzed and broad, CHEEKY and mel
low, a sort of salty cross between Santa
Claus, Neptune and a porpoise, more
tempting than siren to the embrace of
the waves.
But more than Martha Gum, "Old
Smoaker" or George " to Brighton was
that luminous old pudge, tne true patron
saint of the place, DIR. Russell. How he
must have chuckled to himself when he
sent broadcast through Britain that great