ABSTRACT
Dickens’ daily walks were less of rule than of enjoyment and necessity. In the midst of his writing they were indispensable, and especially, as it has often been shown, at night. Mr Sala is an authority on London streets, and […] has described himself encountering Dickens in the oddest places and most inclement weather, in Ratcliffe-highway, on Haverstock-hill, on Camberwell-green, in Gray’s-inn-lane, in the Wandsworth-road, at Hammersmith Broadway, in Norton Folgate, and at Kensal New Town. ‘A hansom whirled you by the Bell and Horns at Brompton, and there he was, striding out, as with seven-league boots, seemingly in the direction of North-end, Fulham. The Metropolitan Railway sent you forth at Lisson-grove, and you met him plodding speedily towards the Yorkshire Stingo. He was to be met rapidly skirting the grim brick wall of the prison in Coldbath-fields, or trudging along the Seven Sisters-road at Holloway, or bearing under a steady press of sail underneath Highgate Archway, or pursuing the even tenor of his way up to the Vauxhall-bridge road’. But he was equally at home in the intricate byways of narrow streets as in the lengthy thoroughfares. Wherever there was ‘matter to be heard and learned’, in backstreets behind Holborn, in Borough courts and passages, in City wharfs and alleys, about the poorer lodging-houses, in prisons, workhouses, ragged-schools, police-courts, rag-shops, chandlers’ shops, and all sorts of markets for the poor, he carried his keen observation and untiring study. ‘I was among the Italian boys from 12 to 2 this morning’, says one of the letters. ‘I am going out to-night in their boat with the Thames Police’, says another. ‘[…] For several consecutive years I accompanied him every Christmas Eve to see the marketings for Christmas down the road from Aldgate to Bow; and he had a surprising fondness for wandering about in poor neighbourhooods on Christmas-day, pass the areas of shabby genteel houses in Somers or Kentish Towns, and watching the dinners preparing or coming in’.
