2 Tom Sp7'ing's Back Parlour. 



cricket in the summer and for general news and amusement, 

 especially the fights, in the winter ; and Bell indulged in 

 caricatures of " Heads of the People," with poetical desciip- 

 tions, some of which caricatures, as we afterwards learnt, 

 were drawn by the immortal John Leech, w^ien a young 

 student in London. I can remember my old friends now. 

 Caricatures of the Lord Mayor, Common Councilmen, the 

 City Marshal, &c., and one in particular, of an assault case 

 at a police-court in which a young lady-costermonger, 

 kissing the book, deposes : 



" Ees, sir, I'll do as you desire, 



And tell 'ee how it coomed about : 

 Muggins called Giles a thundering liar, 

 And so Bill Giles sarved Muggins out." 



I very Hkely shall be discursive, and reproduce some of 

 the eccentricities of Bell when Vincent Dowling was consul. 



Two or three things to my uneducated mind seemed 

 impossible : one was that any men could really have seen 

 the Derby and have lived, or have spoken to such men as 

 Tom Spring, or Peter Crawley, or Tom Cribb — more im- 

 possible still to realise, — and have walked about afterwards 

 as ordinary citizens. I pictured to myself a prize-fighter as 

 a ruffian who lived on nearly raw meat, knocked every one 

 down who contradicted him, and out of whose mouth curses 

 and ribaldry proceeded, and into whose mouth went nothing 

 but brandy. However, curiosity overcame my scruples, 

 and I walked up the passage into the Castle in Holborn, 

 and found myself in a very comfoitable bar, behind which 

 stood a tall, broad-shouldered man, who looked a very well- 

 to-do Baptist minister, minus the hypocritical smile which 

 some of those gentlemen assume — an oily, unctuous, cold, 

 untoasted-muffin expression. He must have been nearly 

 six feet high, if not quite, and boasted a pair of very broad 

 shoulders. His hair was getting slightly grizzled, as were 



