The representative., 1901-06-13

Bits Of Dickens Land Being Improved
Away.


"Mr. PecksniH had been to the undertaken
and was now upon his way to another officer
In the train Of mourning, a female func-
tionary. Her name. as Pecksnin
gathered from a scrap of writing in his
hand, was Camp; her residence In Kings
gate street, High Holborn.'
II the spirit Of Sairey Camp still hovers
about that little house. next door but one
to the celebrated mutton pie shop, and di-
rectly opposite to the original cats meat
warehouse" it must be sorely perturbed.
For the one-time abode Of Dickens most
famous female character is about to come
down to make way for the new Strandto-
Holborn avenue, says the London Daily
Mail.
The shop has remained much the same ia
this day, not excepting the nature Of the
profession carried on within 1t. 1t is still
a barber's shop, although the present oc-
cupier has not seen int to follow the ex-
ample of his immortal predecessor, Poll
Sweedlepipe, and combine the duties of q
bird fancier with those Of "an easy shaver"
Americans who visit London will regret
the disappearance of Mrs. CAMPS abode
more than the Londoners themselves. Every
year lovers Of Dickens from ''the other
in the authors lifetime used to throng the
New York harbors to wait the unloading
of the weekly numbers-make pilgrimagea
to the shop in Kingsgate street and look
up interestedly at the window through
which Mrs. Camp first made the acQuaint-
ance of Mr.. Pecksniff Sometimes the male
members of the deputation submit to be
operated upon by Sweedlepipe's successor.
Guess remarked one ultra Jealous ad-
mirer a few weeks ago-"guess I'll take
this Dickens shave home with me-and
grow whiskers."
The value and interest Of that shave will
increase a hundredfold now that the shop
is to be demolished. Unfortunate that its
possessor cannot sell it to Barnums!
But Kingsgate street is not the only thor
oughfare from which Camp associations
will presently vanish under the pick and
spade of the improving housebreaker. The
Black Bull in Holborn is doomed. 1t was
here that ''Sairey," with the assistance Of
Betsy Prig, nursed Lewsome-"a young
man, dark and not ill-looking, with long.
black hair that seemed the blacker for
the whiteness Of the bedclothes."
"Ah," said Mrs. Camp, walking away
from the bed, he'd make lovely corpse"
Still another famous Dickens place is to
be razed to the ground. This Is the Old
Curiosity Shop In Portugal street.-The reac
curiosity shop. without doubt. 1t was one.
Of those receptacles for old and curious
things which seem to crouch in odd corr
ners of this town, and to hide their mustyl
treasures from the public eye in jealousy
and dstrust The haggard aspect or
the little old man was wonderfully suited
to the place.
Dick Swiveller, Quilp. Kit Goblin audr
Short-what memories do not cluster about
that still picturesque old shop soon to be-
leyeled to the roadway?
A wholesale slice Of Dickens-land is to.
disappear with the removal of Sardinia
street. This queer little thoroughfare iss
associated with the novelist's description
Of the Gordon riots in "Barnaby Rudge." N
Never at any time have so many literary
associations been in course Of destruction.
But what London will lose In sentiment it.
win gain in substantial street :mproyo-,
ments. Besides. as Mrs. Gramp Observed
on the occasion of another "disappearanc6s
TITS what we must ali come to. It's a. ~ q
tain as being born. except that - e r.
make our calculations . oxaGts : S