University of Virginia Library

6. VI.
THE TOWER OF LONDON.

Mr. Punch, my dear Sir,—I skurcely
need inform you that your excellent Tower
is very pop'lar with peple from the agricultooral
districks, and it was chiefly them
class which I found waitin at the gates the
other mornin.

I saw at once that the Tower was established
on a firm basis. In the entire history
of firm basisis I don't find a basis more
firmer than this one.

“You have no Tower in America?” said
a man in the crowd, who had somehow detected
my denomination.

“Alars! no,” I anserd; “we boste of our
enterprise and improovments, and yit we
are devoid of a Tower. America, oh my
onhappy country! thou hast not got no
Tower! It's a sweet Boon.”

The gates was opened after awhile, and
we all purchist tickets, and went into a
waitin-room.

“My frens,” said a pale-faced little man,
in black close, “this is a sad day.”

“Inasmuch as to how?” I said.

“I mean it is sad to think that so many
peple have been killed within these gloomy
walls. My frens, let us drop a tear!”

“No,” I said, “you must excuse me.
Others may drop one if they feel like it;
but as for me, I decline. The early managers
of this institootion were a bad lot, and
their crimes were trooly orful; but I can't
sob for those who died four or five hundred
years ago. If they was my own relations
I couldn't. It's absurd to shed sobs over
things which, occurd durin the rain of
Henry the Three. Let us be cheerful,” I
continnerd. “Look at the festiv Warders,
in their red flannil jackets. They are
cheerful, and why should it not be thusly
with us?”

A Warder now took us in charge, and
showed us the Trater's Gate, the armers,
and things. The Trater's Gate is wide

enuff to admit about twenty traters abrest,
I should jedge; but beyond this, I couldn't
see that it was superior to gates in gen'ral.

Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit
class of peple. If they wasn't, they
wouldn't be traters. They conspire to bust
up a country—they fail, and they're traters.
They bust her, and they become statesmen
and heroes.

Take the case of Gloster, afterwards Old
Dick the Three, who may be seen at the
Tower, on horseback, in a heavy tin overcoat—take
Mr. Gloster's case. Mr. G. was
a conspirater of the basist dye, and if he'd
failed, he would have been hung on a sour
apple tree. But Mr. G. succeeded, and became
great. He was slewd by Col. Richmond,
but he lives in histry, and his equestrian
figger may be seen daily for a sixpence,
in conjunction with other em'nent
persons, and no extra charge for the Warder's
able and bootiful lectur.

There's one king in this room who is
mounted onto a foamin steed, his right
hand graspin a barber's pole. I didn't learn
his name.

The room where the daggers and pistils
and other weppins is kept is interestin.
Among this collection of choice cuttlery I
notist the bow and arrer which those hotheded
old chaps used to conduct battles
with. It is quite like the bow and arrer
used at this day by certin tribes of American
Injuns, and they shoot'em off with such
a excellent precision that I almost sigh'd to
be a Injun, when I was in the Rocky Mountin
regin. They are a pleasant lot them
Injuns. Mr. Cooper and Dr. Catlin have
told us of the red man's wonerful eloquence,
and I found it so. Our party was stopt on
the plains of Utah by a band of Shoshones,
whose chief said, “Brothers! the pale-face
is welcome. Brothers! the sun is sinkin
in the West, and Wa-na-bucky-she will soon
cease speakin. Brothers! the poor red
man belongs to a race which is fast becomin
extink.” He then whooped in a
shrill manner, stole all our blankets and
whiskey, and fled to the primeval forest to
conceal his emotions.

I will remark here, while on the subjeck
of Injuns, that they are in the main a very

shaky set, with even less sense than the
Fenians, and when I hear philanthropists
bewailin the fack that every year “carries
the noble red man nearer the settin sun,” I
simply have to say I'm glad of it, tho' it is
rough on the settin sun. They call you
by the sweet name of Brother one minit,
and the next they scalp you with their
Thomashawks. But I wander. Let us return
to the Tower.

At one end of the room where the weppins
is kept, is a wax figger of Queen
Elizabeth, mounted on a fiery stuffed hoss,
whose glass eye flashes with pride, and
whose red morocker nostril dilates hawtily,
as if conscious of the royal burden he
bears. I have associated Elizabeth with
the Spanish Armady. She's mixed up
with it at the Surry Theatre, where Troo to
the Core is bein acted, and in which a full
bally core is introjooced on board the Spanish
Admiral's ship, givin the audiens the
idee that he intends openin a moosic-hall
in Plymouth the moment he conkers that
town. But a very interesting drammer is
Troo to the Core, notwitstandin the eccentric

conduck of the Spanish Admiral; and
very nice it is in Queen Elizabeth to make
Martin Truegold a baronet.

The Warder shows us some instrooments
of tortur, such as thumbscrews, throat-collars,
etc., statin that these was conkerd from
the Spanish Armady, and addin what a
crooil peple the Spaniards was in them
days—which elissited from a bright-eyed
little girl of about twelve summers the remark
that she tho't it was rich to talk about
the crooilty of the Spaniards usin thumbscrews,
when we was in a Tower where so
many poor peple's heads had been cut off.
This made the Warder stammer and turn
red.

I was so pleased with the little girl's
brightness that I could have kissed the
dear child, and I would if she'd been six
years older.

I think my companions intended makin
a day of it, for they all had sandwiches,
sassiges, etc. The sad-lookin man, who
had wanted us to drop a tear afore we
started to go round, fling'd such quantities
of sassige into his mouth, that I expected

to see him choke hisself to death, he said
to me, in the Beauchamp Tower, where the
poor prisoners writ their onhappy names
on the cold walls “This is a sad sight.”

“It is, indeed,” I anserd. “You're
black in the face. You shouldn't eat sassige
in public without some rehearsals beforehand.
You manage it orkwardly.”

“No,” he said, “I mean this sad room.”

Indeed, he was quite right. Tho'so long
ago all these drefful things happened, I was
very glad to git away from this gloomy
room, and go where the rich and sparklin
Crown Jewils is kept. I was so pleased
with the Queen's Crown, that it occurd to
me what a agree'ble surprise it would be to
send a sim'lar one home to my wife; and I
asked the Warder what was the vally of a
good, well-constructed Crown like that.
He told me, but on cypherin up with a
pencil the amount of funs I have in the
Jint Stock Bank, I conclooded I'd send
her a genteel silver watch instid.

And so I left the Tower. It is a solid
and commandin edifis, but I deny that it is
cheerful. I bid it adoo without a pang.

I was droven to my hotel by the most
melancholly driver of a four-wheeler that I
ever saw. He heaved a deep sigh as I
gave him two shillings. “I'll give you six
d.'s more,” I said, “if it hurts you so.”

“It isn't that,” he said, with a hart-rendin
groan, “it's only a way I have. My mind's
upset to-day. I at one time tho't I'd drive
you into the Thames. I've been readin all
the daily papers to try and understand
about Governor Ayre, and my mind is totterin.
It's really wonderful I didn't drive
you into the Thames.”

I asked the onhappy man what his
number was, so I could redily find him
in case I should want him agin, and bad
him good-bye. And then I tho't what a
frollicksome day I'd made of it.