River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1919-01-23

Anu SO the VlSICOf Illus 1t LOudy, d1~
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. 1t 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 it's blinds that Mr..
Pickwick surveyed the passer-by in
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, over 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 Slammer 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 13 and 10; but
which is which no one knows. Number
13, 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 ball
room, 'the elegant and commodious
assembly rooms to the Winglebury
Arms" In the "Pickwick Papers"
Dickens thus describes it: "It was a
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 cardroom,
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, and
at the end is the veritable elevated
den where the fiddlers fiddled. Al
though today it is not used as a dane
ing room on account of the military and
naval demands of the town, there may
come time when it will revert to it's
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 permeated.
''Wright's, next house." which Jingle
informed his friends was '.Dear-very
dear-half 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
to 1890 and associated with Henry VIII
and Hogarth-but its fame is a thing.
of the past and doesn't count.
George Stephenson's engine, "The