Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-11-27
Charming Chelsea and the Interest
ing Spots in the Vicinity.
THE ANCIENT LONDON SUBURB
Replete With Memories Of Kings, States.
men. Novellsts and PoetA
A GLIMPSE OF THE POWERFUL LUTHoR
CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DISPATCH,


of these folk on q London bus and had Q
good hours study of him as curious char
acter without knowing who ne wa. He
first attracted my attention By his gener-
ally disheveled and thrown-together ap-
pearance. When he entered the bus he
held copy of the London Times in one
hand and dragged very old bit of travel
ing rug in the other He slapped the latter
over his knees as ne sat down, glared at the
passengers savagely, and Immediately
closed his eyes and began peculiar mo-
tion of his mouth that seemed like u nerv-
Gus chewing of his neither lip.
He was a scraggy and it then seemed to
me an ill-kempt man, out of sorts with all
the world. 1 mentally endea7ored to place
him. Perhaps he is some one Of those
seedy old clerks so wondrously pictured by
Dickens, thought I. He may be miserly
old bachelor who daily tumbles out Of his
lodgings and into his work and then back
again, never knowing change, sieeping in
his clothing, mummied to everything en-
earth but his ledgers and his desk. II he
have wife and family, he cuffs the chill
dren, warns the cook, abuses the housemaid
and 'blows up his wife before leaving his
hab1tation, and this particular morning hs
has made them understand who is master
with greater vehemence than usual
A Temporary Neglect of Duty.
Pretty soon he seemed to awake with 3
start, glared again at his fellow passengers,
and, giving his bonY knees VICIOUS tWiss
a@ay from proximity to an elderly fat
woman who sat beside him, plunged INTO
his paper as though so far he had overlooked
his duty of discovering, capturing and pun
ishing some sort of seditlon within. Sure
enough it was there. He scanned the .di-
torial page for moment, smashed the paper
together. with his knuckly hands, dropped
it upon the bus floor, and, paving it back
beneath his feet, for some time gave it
nervous kind OF pounding which plainly
told his sentiments for the baiderdash no
had discovered. Then he tell to chewing
again with his eyes quite closed, and shortly
awnke with q start, to lunge toward the door
and soundly berate the conductor for car
rying him past his destination. could not
hear all of this scolding; but it brought traE-
fic on the Strand to. a standstill; and then
the scraggv, hairy, tunbled- up, loose -jointed
old man disappeared among the cabs and
'busses, tangible, irascDle Alteration
with Scotch dialect, prompting trom dri-
vers as he passed the choicest black guard
quips and quirks that roll from London drI-
yers' ready tongues.
the incident left smile on nearly every
face in the omnibus. A pleasant-iaced man
sitting beside me, noticing nv look of in
quiry and rightly judging my nationality,
kindly solved the mystery. 'M7 dear
sir" he said with almost an air of pride,
she's a brave literary man, that. He
wasn't born in England, but he's the big
gest man in it. When you get back to
America you can tell the Yankees you've
seen old Thomas Carlylei'
BattIed Along Together.
In the very heart of this p1easanteyt Of
all London outer districts, Thomas AMI Jane
Welsh Carlyle literally battled along to-
gether, from the 10th day OF October, 1884,
until Mrs. Car)yle's sad and strange death
in her brougham in Hyde Park, in April,
1866. The lonely old soul that was left re-
manned, rather than lived in the same
house to the end, in 1881. And l somehow
believe that the At years staying OF the sage
OF Ecclefechan in No. Great Cheyne Row
has thrown more OF poetic gldmOr over old
Chelsea than all the other famous and
great who have come and tarrieI and gone.
Materially, Sir Thomas More originally
made Chelsea. CARLYLE rounds out its
fame. Vast fields OF history and romance
lie between. This "pore house in Chel-
home of Sir Thomas More, was not so hum
BILE an habitation after all. 1t had great
porch, many fine windows, dozens OF gables,
a pretty tower, splendid gar Iens for the
time. and besides housing the happiest fam
ily living in England in the sixteenth
century, was so attractive place, though
then far away from London, that Queen
Mary was ''moved to purchase il" the gar
rulous Erasmus found it hOspitable re-
treat; and King Henry VIII often came up
the Thames in his royal barge TO debark
and stroll to his first old Chelsea mansion
with his arm lovingly around the neck Of
More, which his headman's ak severed enc
July morning little later on.
A World of Memories.
Chelsea Hospital itself is q world Of
not only of British history afisld
but of the time of Charles H., of old King
James College, of Sir Stephen Fox, and Of
though kind-hearted Nell
Gwynne. And as to the pensioners them
selves Chelsea would hardly be Chelsea
without them. Struggling along its shady
sitting bent and silent on
sunny benches, leaning against whipping
fountains or vases and statues, resting as
as house owners on steps and in
vestibules, or stumping gravely along with
habit had given them supervisory rights
over the daily affairs OF residents, they
irresistibly suggest bevies of croaking
,ockatoos turned loose in park and garden,
each one Querulously harping upon soma
fancied grievance or delight
AT the western side OF the hospital still
stands Sir Robert Walpole's house, almost
precisely as it stood when he all but
ruled England through the two Georges,
First and Second. 1t is now a portion Of
he hospital infirInary. 1t was to this old
red brick mansion that Walpole's rival,
came to dine and halt choked
or his choler; where Swift and Gay came to
yet material for satire, and where Pope
,ame with scandals of his past amOurs and,
to beg for assistance in others.
Long and pleasant is ones lettering
here II you come many days or but one,
IN endless host OF wraiths of WORTHLESS start
I'D unbidden in your wanderings II once
,r many times you depart, you will ever
nseusibly be drawn, at parting, to the
ray old habitations of Great Cheyne Row.
The windows OF all overlook the turbulent
river, darkening Battersea st its further
shore, and the pleasant villages uDon the
hills OF Surrey beyond. At the window of
,ne, it matters not who lives there now,
7our fancy cannot but see shaggy, sturdy,
lagcard face. Its gray, defiant, but sor-
-owtul eyes are lifted across the turbulent
river, and rest beyond the hills upon that
material and spiritual Light that some
where ever brings the blessed morning
lime. EDGAR L. WAKEMAN,
Narrow Escape of Train.
The Indian mail train to Brindisi recentl
od q narror asoana nf heinO wrepked naay