The Brighton of my Boyhood 



simplicity and the glow of an old-world 

 Christmastide. The carolling over, my 

 Mother brought out spiced ale and Christ- 

 mas cake, and my Father gave each man a 

 coin ; and so with many wishes for a merry 

 Christmas on both sides, out they tramped 

 again into the still frosty night. 



There was hardly a man among these 

 fishermen (and yet for the most part they 

 were as honest a set of fellows as heart 

 could wish) that was not something of a 

 smuggler ; and there was not a soul among 

 us Brighton folk, from the King himself to 

 the straitest Quaker of the Black Lion 

 Street Meeting, but was glad enough to 

 buy the smuggled goods. 1 do not know 

 they were always of the superior quality 

 boasted by their vendors, but that their 

 contraband character added a zest to their 

 original worth, there can be no doubt at 

 all ; it lent a fine aroma to our cognac, 

 it spiced the tobacco in our pipes and 

 tinged a silken gown with the glamour of 

 romance. 



The ugly stories of encounters between 

 coastguards and smugglers, some of them 

 stories of an inhumanity rare, as I like to 

 believe, in our dear England, had died into 

 history in my childhood, Smuggling had 

 become so barefaced and was so per- 

 J3 



