The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-09-07
RELICS OF DICKENS.
MANY QUAINT BUILDINGS MADE FA-
NOUS By THE NOVELIST.

lUdSJcr NOVELIST WIFI C~ndTdCbSIS ulOIe
real to us in some respects than their
present inhabitants, will be nonexistent.
Entering LincOln's-inn-fields from Great
Queen street, turn TO the right, pause at
SO, and picture Mr.. Tulkinghorn emerg-
ing one evening from chambers where
lawyers lie like maggots In nuts" I'm
agine him walking through the inn,
passing beneath it's ancient Tudor gate
way, and wishing Mr.. Snagsby, the law
statiOner in Cooks court, Cursitor street,
with a view of ascertaining where Memo,
the mysterious law writer, lives.
A little to the south Of Old Buildings,
on the west side of Chancery lane, are
Bishops court and Chichester Rents,
the latter approached through a tun-
neled passage alongside the Three Iuns
public house. To the Rents came the
1.-TWO gentlemen, not very neat about
the cuffs and buttons who instituted
acquisitions through the court, dlved
into the Soils parlor and wrote with
ravenOus little pens on tissue paper
those sensational reports of the inquest
which had just been held at that we'll
known and popular house of entertain
ment. the Old Soils Arms"
Soils is the present Old Ship Tavern.
1t stands at the head Of the court, fac
| ing it on one side and the wall Of Lincoln
Inn on the other. 1t is certainly ancient
enough, and on the first floor can still
be seen the identical long, low room
where the coroner presided, and where
little Swills, the comic vocalist, pre-
| sented to the harmonic meeting his adj
mirable i~mpersonatiOn Of that important
official.
So far identification is plain sailing.
But where was the famous rag and bot
tie shop, whose gin soaked proprietor
died from spontaneous combustion: Mr..
Rimmer, in About London with Dick
ems" is silent on the subject. The writer
of dickens London thinks it must
have stood in Bishops court hard by
for no other reason apparently than the
fact of its being IAN old, narrow, dreary,
d~ecaying and mournful passage, just
the place in which such people as the
poor law writer and crazy Miss Elite
would have made IL home"
But a careful study Of every allusion
made by Dickens to the locality will, |
think, show that Mr.. Pemberton is
probably mistaken. KrOoks shop is
spoken of as Lying and being i'll the
shadow Of the WALL blinded by
the wall" No house in Bishops
court exactly answers to this descflp-
ton. On the contrary, the only
likely one at the corner next to Old
Soils faces an open passageway which
leads to New square. Krook's must
therefore lie sought for at Nos. 8 and
9 in the Rents now occupied by a
law Stationery, opposite the Old Ship,
fronting the court on n side and on
the other within a couple of yards off
and entirely blinded by the wall" SC
often referred to in the narrative.
Miss Elite, meeting Esther Summer
t son and the wards III chancery one morn
: inc in Old square, invited them to come
, and see her lodgings. So close by die
she live that, slipping out at a little
side gate" she stopped most uneXpect
edlv in marrow back street" Star yard
leading to Carey street,, part OF som
courts and lanes Immediately outside
: the wall Of the inn," and she was a
home. She lodged i'll "a garnet at tn
ton of KroOk's shop, described as "bllnd
ed bv the wall Of Lincoln's Inn, which
intercepted the light within a couple O
wards" She lived i'll a pretty larg'
room, from which she had a glimpse o
the roof Of LinColn's Inn hall; the nev
one, be it remembered, for the old hal
is entirely shut out from view by the tai
= houses in old buildings.
1t is during the visit that the poo
little c~reaturc draws aside the curtall
of the long. low garnet window and call
attention to IA number of bird cage
. hanging there, whose occupants Lad,
lane. the cat, Is forever striving to de
YOUR. c%rouching Ion the parapet Outsld
for hours and hours" This is COncluslv
testimony, for no other house in elthe
Y court-save the Old Ship-possesses a.
attic with an outside parapet. The win
dows are mostly dormers, or flush wit
the wall, while from no other garre
window-except SOl's-can a glimpse @
the old hall roof he had. This ca
readily be tested by standing close
the hall and looking through the tree
> toward Chichester Rents, where tn
slated top story and long, low garre
window of the rag and bottle shop ma
be identified.
In a miserable back room on the SCI
ond floor of this dismal abode Captal
Hawdon, alias Memo, was found dea
bv Mr.. Tulkinghorn and krook-dyin
nv his own hands from an overdose
oninm. To a hemmed in churchyar(
pestiferous and obscene, they a OF
dear brother here departed and lowe
him down "A foot or two" On the stel
leading to this ch~arnelhouse Dan
burden finds her mother, with OF
arm creeping around a bar of the 1rc
gate and seeming TO embrace it" Tn
SPOT is rather hard to find, but walk I
catherine street from the Strand, al
half way up on the right turn into Ru
sell court leading into Drury lane, al
III midway to the left of this passage, Is Il
approach to the 'consecrated ground.
The little tunnel of a cour is much
it was forty years ago. But the lamp
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