There were many troublesome survivals in 1837 which have long since been swept away. Toll-gates,{45}
THE PIKEMEN
Image unavailable: KNIGHTSBRIDGE TOLL-GATE, 1854.
KNIGHTSBRIDGE TOLL-GATE, 1854.
{46}
{47}
for instance. The toll or turnpike gate of sixty, fifty, forty years ago was a very real grievance2, both on country roads and in London itself, or in those districts which we now call London. Many people objected to pay toll then, and a favourite amusement of the young bloods was fighting the pikeman for his halfpenny, his penny, or his sixpence, as the case might be. Sometimes the pikeman won, sometimes those gay young sparks; and the pikeman always took those terrific encounters as part of the day’s work, and never summoned those sportsmen for assault and battery. In fact, they were such sporting times that, whether the pikeman or the Corinthian youth won, the latter would probably chuck his antagonist3 a substantial coin of the realm, whereupon the pikeman would say that ‘his honour was a gemman,’ and exeunt severally to purchase beef-steaks for the reduction of black eyes.
Image unavailable: THE PIKEMAN.
THE PIKEMAN.
The present generation has, of course, never seen a pikeman. He wore a tall black glazed4 hat and corduroy breaches5, with white stockings. But the most distinctive6 part of his costume was his white linen7 apron8. No one knows why he wore an apron; neither did he, and the reason of it must now needs be lost in{48} the mists of history, because the last pikeman, whom otherwise we might have asked, is dead, and gone to Hades, where he probably is still going through a series of shadowy encounters beside the shores of the Styx with the ghosts of the Toms and Jerrys of long ago, and offering to fight Charon for the price of his ferry across the stream.
But here we are at rural Knightsbridge, in 1837 as quiet a spot as you could find round London, with scattered9 cottages of the rustic10, rose-embowered kind. Knightsbridge Green was a green in those days, and not, as it is now, a squalid paved court. Then, and for many years afterwards, the soldiers from the neighbouring barracks would walk with the nursemaids in the country lanes, and take tea in the tea-gardens which stood away behind the highroad and were a feature of Brompton. Where are those tea-gardens now, and where the toll-gate that barred the road by the barracks? Gone, my friends; swept away like the gossamer11 threads of the spiders that spun12 webs in the arbours of those gardens and dropped in the nursemaids’ tea and the soldiers’ beer. Those soldiers and those nursemaids are gone too, else it would be a pleasing, a curious, and an instructive thing to take them, tottering13 in their old age, by the hand and say: ‘Here, my gallant14 warrior15 of eighty years or so,’ and ‘Here, my pretty maiden16 of four-score, is Knightsbridge, the self-same Knightsbridge you knew, but with some new, and somewhat larger, buildings.’ They would be as strangers in a strange land, and, dazed by the din17 of the thronging18 traffic amid the sky-scraping buildings, beg to be taken{49}
THE ‘NEW POLICE’
Image unavailable: KNIGHTSBRIDGE BARRACKS TOLL-GATE.
KNIGHTSBRIDGE BARRACKS TOLL-GATE.
{50}
{51}
away. But to bring back the policeman of that era, if that were possible, and set him to control this traffic, would be more instructive still. When the last years of the coaching age along this road were still running their course, ‘Robert,’ the ‘Peeler,’ or the ‘New Police,’ as he was variously named, had an easy time of it here. Not so his successors, who have to deal with an almost continual block, all day long and every day.
Image unavailable: THE ‘NEW POLICE.’
THE ‘NEW POLICE.’
The ‘New Police’ were a novel body of men in the early years of the reign19, having been introduced in 1829 by Sir Robert Peel. Hence the brilliant appropriateness of those nicknames. There still, however, lingered in various parts of the Metropolis20 that ancient institution, the Watchman, who patrolled the streets at night and announced the hours in a curious sing-song voice with remarks upon the state of the weather added. Those who sat up late were familiar with the chant: ‘Twelve o’clock, and a stormy night!’ and found comfort in the companionship of that voice.
The watchmen, although scarce anyone now living can have seen one of those many-caped, tottering old fellows, seem strangely familiar to us. That is because we have read so much about them in the exploits of Tom and Jerry, the Corinthian youth of the glorious days of George the Fourth, when the most popular forms of sport were knocker-wrenching, bilking a pikeman, and thrashing a Charley. A{52} ‘Charley’ was, of course, a watchman. The thrashing of a ‘Charley’ was not an heroic pursuit, but (or, rather, therefore) it was extremely popular. They were generally old men, and not capable of very serious reprisals21 upon the gangs of muscular youths who thumped22, whacked23, larrupped, and beat them unmercifully, and overturned their watch-boxes on to them, so that those poor old men were imprisoned24 until some Samaritan came by and released them. No one ever attempted that sort of thing with the ‘New Police,’ who were not old and decrepit25 men, but tall, lusty, upstanding fellows. Perhaps that was why the ‘New Police’ were so violently objected to, although the ostensible26 grounds of objection were founded on the supposition that the continental27 system of a semi-military gendarmerie was intended. The authorities were therefore at great pains to keep the police a strictly28 citizen force, and although a uniform was, of course, necessary, one as nearly as possible like civilian29 dress was chosen. The present uniform of the police, and the police themselves, if they had then worn a helmet, would have been howled out of existence by the violent Radicals30 and Chartists who troubled the early years of the Queen’s reign. They did not, therefore, wear a helmet at all, but a tall glazed hat of the chimney-pot kind. A swallow-tailed coat, tightly buttoned up, with a belt round the waist, a stiff stock under the chin, and trousers of white duck gave him, altogether, a very respectable and citizen-like aspect. It has been left to later years to alter this uniform.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
toll
|
|
| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
grievance
|
|
| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
antagonist
|
|
| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
glazed
|
|
| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
breaches
|
|
| 破坏( breach的名词复数 )； 破裂； 缺口； 违背 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
distinctive
|
|
| adj.特别的，有特色的，与众不同的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
linen
|
|
| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
apron
|
|
| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
scattered
|
|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
rustic
|
|
| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
gossamer
|
|
| n.薄纱，游丝 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
spun
|
|
| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
tottering
|
|
| adj.蹒跚的，动摇的v.走得或动得不稳( totter的现在分词 )；踉跄；蹒跚；摇摇欲坠 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
gallant
|
|
| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
warrior
|
|
| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
maiden
|
|
| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
din
|
|
| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
thronging
|
|
| v.成群，挤满( throng的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
reign
|
|
| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
metropolis
|
|
| n.首府；大城市 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
reprisals
|
|
| n.报复（行为）( reprisal的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
thumped
|
|
| v.重击， （指心脏）急速跳动( thump的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
whacked
|
|
| a.精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
imprisoned
|
|
| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
decrepit
|
|
| adj.衰老的，破旧的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
ostensible
|
|
| adj.(指理由)表面的，假装的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
continental
|
|
| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
strictly
|
|
| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
civilian
|
|
| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
radicals
|
|
| n.激进分子( radical的名词复数 )；根基；基本原理；[数学]根数 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |