[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> John Leech —> Dickens's The Chimes —> Next]
Alderman Cute and his Friends
John Leech
1844
Wood-block engraving by W. J. Linton
12.2 cm by 7.1 cm (4 ¾ by 2 ⅞ inches), vignetted.
Full-page illustration for Dickens's The Chimes: "The First Quarter," 34.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand. ["The First Quarter," 34]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
The Alderman laughed, and winked; for he was a merry fellow, Alderman Cute. Oh, and a sly fellow too! A knowing fellow. Up to everything. Not to be imposed upon. Deep in the people’s hearts! He knew them, Cute did. I believe you!
"But who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, looking round. "Tripe is without an exception the least economical, and the most wasteful article of consumption that the markets of this country can by possibility produce. The loss upon a pound of tripe has been found to be, in the boiling, seven-eights of a fifth more than the loss upon a pound of any other animal substance whatever. Tripe is more expensive, properly understood, than the hothouse pine-apple. Taking into account the number of animals slaughtered yearly within the bills of mortality alone; and forming a low estimate of the quantity of tripe which the carcases of those animals, reasonably well butchered, would yield; I find that the waste on that amount of tripe, if boiled, would victual a garrison of five hundred men for five months of thirty-one days each, and a February over. The Waste, the Waste!"
Trotty stood aghast, and his legs shook under him. He seemed to have starved a garrison of five hundred men with his own hand.
"Who eats tripe?" said Mr. Filer, warmly. "Who eats tripe?"
Trotty made a miserable bow. ["The First Quarter," pp. 33-35]
An early review of The Chimes noted the local politician upon whom Dickens based Alderman Cute:
A character of another "order" will, doubtless, be identified among our civic neighbours [an allusion to Middlesex magistrate Sir Peter Laurie, who in 1841 had conducted a campaign against attempting to commit suicide among the urban poor]: it is that of one, who, by "putting down," in the story before us, contrives to perpetuate much mischief, as in the following scene of Toby's Daughter and Alderman Cute. [The Illustrated London News, 21 December 1844, 395]
Left: Charles Green's far more realistic version of Trotty's meeting the London politician and Tory statistician in the street: Alderman Cute and Mr. Filer (1912). Right: Harry Furniss's Trotty Veck's Dinner, the prelude to Filer's examination. (1910) [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Above: Abbey's American Household study of Trotty's dealing with Mr. Filer: "What's the matter? What's the matter?" said the gentleman for whom the door was opened. (1876).
Dickens, Charles. The Chimes. Introduction by Clement Shorter. Illustrated by Charles Green. The Pears' Centenary Edition. London: A & F Pears, [?1912].
_____. The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang An Old Year Out and a New Year In. Illustrated by John Leech, Richard Doyle, Clarkson Stanfield, and Daniel Maclise. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1844 [Printed title-page dated "1845."].
_____. Christmas Books. Illustrated by Fred Barnard. 22 vols. The Household Edition. London: Chapman and Hall, 1878. Vol. XVIII.
_____. The Christmas Books. Illustrated by Harry Furniss. Charles Dickens Library Edition. 18 vols. London: Educational Book Company, 1910, VIII, 79-157.
_____. Christmas Stories. Illustrated by E. A. Abbey. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1876. Vol. V.
"Literature: The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells That Rang an Old Year out and a New Year in. By Charles Dickens." [Review and synopsis]. The Illustrated London News, 21 December 1844. 394-95.
Patten, Robert L. Chapter 7, "Ringing Out Change." Dickens, Death, and Christmas. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. 127-168.
Created 20 February 2001 Last modified 18 May 2024