Mr. Lambkin and his friends . . . indulge in the usual nocturnal amusements of Gentlemen
George Cruikshank
1844
Steel-engraving
9.9 cm high by 8.9 cm wide, framed
Thirteenth illustration for George Cruikshank's The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin (Gent.), in the Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement (page 26).
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
Mr. Lambkin and his friends, after supper at "the rooms," indulge in the usual nocturnal amusements of Gentlemen — the Police officiously interfere with their pastime — Mr. Lambkin after evincing the noble courage of a Lion, the strength of a Bull, the sagacity of a Fox, the stubborness of a Donkey, and the activity of a Mountain Cat, is at length overcome by Policeman Smith. A. 1. [page 26]
J. Ewing Ritchie gives the following figures for 1856:
it appears that in all 73,240 persons were taken into custody, of whom 45,941 were males, and 27,209 females; 18,000 of the apprehensions were on account of drunkenness, 8160 for unlawful possession of goods, 7021 for simple larceny, 6763 for common assaults, 2194 for assaults on the police; 4303 women were taken into custody as prostitutes. (qtd. in Jackson 63)
In the Cruikshank illustration, Lambkin and his cronies are guilty of both public drunkenness as well as forcibly resisting arrest — "drunk and disorderly in a public place." The rowdiness is all the more egregious because the gentlemen resist the efforts of the Bobbies (distinguished by their uniforms and hats) to restore the peace in the midst of densely inhabited part of the metropolis, indicated by the flats in the left rear, and the Palladian doorway, right rear.
The full moon, upper left, might imply that such outrageous behaviour on the part of young, middle-class males was exceptional, but the statistics for assaults on the police and public drunkenness would suggest that such rowdiness was normal in the metropolis, even in the West End. And who better to illustrate the night side of London than Londoner George Cruikshank? His experience as the sole illustrator of Dickens's Sketches by Boz and Oliver Twist meant that he already had plenty of visual material to draw upon for Mr. Lambkin, including a young gentleman and his rowdy friends hectoring a respectable bourgeois in Our Next-door Neighbour and the Metropolitan Police apprehending a petty criminal in the vicinity of Covent Garden in A pickpocket taken into Custody. But this situation is also unique in that Lambkin does not merely "disturb the peace," and he is hardly a common criminal; rather, he is a drunk behaving badly and playing the bravo. Indeed, he seems to be posing as a rowdy and ne'er-do-well, as if trying to recapture a lost youth, when, not yet having come into his expectations, he was an ordinary middle-class urbanite. The violence with which the police officers respond here, using their nightsticks on the incapacitated (right) and the inebriated (centre), suggests that they have been attacked and assaulted. The "nocturnal amusements" presumably include petty vandalism as the man in the nightcap seems to be inspecting damage to his door.
Left: Cruikshank's animated and engaging portrait of gentlemen rowdies in an earlier Dickens sketch, Our Next-door Neighbour. Centre: Cruikshank's earlier view of an inebriated London gentleman's disrupting a theatrical performance, Making a Night of It. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Cruikshank, George. The Bachelor’s Own Book; Or, The Progress Of Mr. Lambkin, In The Pursuit Of Pleasure And Amusement. Glasgow: David Bryce, 1844, rpt. 1880.
Jackson, Lee. A Dictionary of Victorian London. London: Anthem, 2006. (See review.)
Last modified 24 May 2018
