The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-01-17
TIE Bull Hotel, Rochester.


though the interior of the coffee room
may have been denuded of it's COM
partments which the interview be-
tween Pip and Bentley Drummle in
"Great Expectations" suggests were
there on that occasion. It was in this
room that the Pickwickians break
tasted and awaited the arrival of the
chaise to take them to Dingley Dell
and it was over its blinds that Mr..
Pickwick surveyed the passer-by III
the street, and before which the We
hicle made it's appearance with the
very amusing result known to all read
ers Of the book.
Has Not Been Much Altered.
The commercial room is across the
yard, oyer which on one occasion Mr..
Wopsle was reciting Collins ode TO
Pip in "Great Expectations" with such
dramatic effect that the commercials
objected and sent up their compli-
ments with the remark that sit wasn't
the Tumbler's Arms"
From the hall runs the staircase
upon which took place the famous
scene between Doctor Slamnler and
Jingle, illustrated so spiritedly by
Phiz. Those who remember the Incl
dent-and who does not?-can visu-
alize it all again as they mount the
stairs to the bedrooms above, which
the Pickwickians occupied. They re-
main as Dickens described them, even
in some cases to the very bedsteads
and furniture and are still shown to
the interested visitor.
"Winkle's bedroom is inside mine"
is how Mr.. Tupman put it. That is to
say the one led out of the other, and
they are numbered Is and 10; but
which is which no one knows. Number
IL, by the way, is the room the queen
slept in on the occasion of her visit,
eight months after the appearance Of
the first part of Pickwick.
Number II is claimed as Mr.. Pick
wick's room, which is also the one
Dickens occupied on one occasion, and
the one in "Seven Poor Travellers"
from which the occupant assures us
that "after the cathedral bell struck
eight I could smell the delicious SAVIOR
of turkey and roast beef rising to the
! window of my adjoining room, which
looked down into the yard just where
the lights of the kitchen redeemed a
massive fragment of the castle wall"
Assembly Room Still There.
An important feature in those days,
and presumably today, was the bali
room, ''the elegant and commodious
assembly rooms to the Wingiebury
Arms" In the sPickwick Papers'1
Dickens thus describes it: st was q
long room, with crimson-covered
benches, and wax candles in glass
chandeliers. The musicians were Sc
curely confined in an elevated den,
and quadrilles were being systemati-
cally got through by two or three sets
! of dancers. Two card tables were
made up in the adjoining carllroom,
and two pair OF old ladies and a cor
responding number of stout gentle
men were executing whist therein
! The room itself is unaltered. There
hang still the glass chandeliers, anti
at the end is the veritable elevated
| den where the fiddlers fiddled. AL
| though today it is not used as q dane
! ing room on account of the military and
| naval demands of the town. there may
come a time when it will revert to its
| old glory and tradition.
But the pleasant fact remains that
| the Bull inn exists today and the Dick
| ems tradition clings to it still. One in
| stinctively goes there as the center Of
| DickenSian atmosphere with which the
! old city of Rochester is perneated.
| "Wright's, next house." which Jingle
| informed his friends was 'lDear-yery
| dear-half a crown in the bill if you
| look at the waiter" may have been
more famous and more pretentious an
! inn than the Bull in the old, old days
| it was known as the Crown, dated back
4 to 1890 and associated with Henry Viii
and Hogarth-but its fame is a thinr.
| of the past and doesn't count.
| George Stephenson's engine, "rha
Rocket" weighed four and a half tons,
while modern engine weighs as much
as 100 tons.