From a lady, Battersea
The hatstand in the hall has begun weeping. I thought at first it was just the rain from the umbrellas and the hats and coats and so had these removed and dried by the kitchen hearth. But the stand still dripped even though there was nothing on it. Awful puddle on the floor. I’d throw the thing out, except it was a gift from Mummy.
From a chambermaid, Chelsea
I didn’t think very much of it at first, but as it happened – the change – over numerous nights, I did note it so particular. My lady’s pelmets have all turned black and stiff. All over the house there is not a single pelmet that has not shrunken and blackened and I cannot tell why. All the curtains tend that way now, and have a terrible smell about them; the whole house stinks of ruined pelmets and curtains.
From a young woman, Leinster Square
And now no one can find him anywhere, there’s no sign, no notion of where he has gone to. My dear, my dearest Cuthbert. He said he loved me. I do think he meant it. I so long for him to come back again, to hold my hand like he did last week. I take small solace in the little tin compass they found in his room at the club. It was jolly kind of them to let me have it as a keepsake. I do wonder where he is. Some say he always was a terrible leg puller, and some say he never could be steady, but others think something untoward has occurred and that he may be in awful trouble. If he’d but come to me I feel certain we could work it out between us.
If only there were sunlight again we might find some of what we have lost.
From a matchbox seller, Hackney
I don’t know how it happened. But my matches, every box of them, come ruined in the night. I did hear some shifting going on in our room, but that’s as often the case, there being five of us that perch here. But in the morning, I never should credit it. All them matches of mine, all them little boxes, what I earn my crust from. They’ve all, well, they’ve all gone and ruined on me. Seems the matches inside had growed in the night, and stretched and burst their boxes. And the other thing is them matches, they’re soft now, what before was hard and wooden are now very white and I’d say flabby, most soft to the touch. Sticky. How’s a fellow to sell them? Who’d buy such things?
Park Keeper, Round Pond, Kensington Gardens
Many of the wooden yachts and lesser sailboats that the children are wont to push out on the water have grown strangely heavy and do sink.
The Foundling Hospital, Coram Fields
To date seven children have succumbed; it is generally the newly arrived. One is now a label marked GIN, one a penknife, one a baby’s shoe, one a beating cane, one a sieve, one a doormat; two of them are pen nibs now. The rest of the children are most distressed and cease to play with the objects set aside for them, but rather sit now their hands in their laps regarding one another with the highest anxiety. Some cry. Some shout. All are put out. We have had some music performed by the children’s choir, but it has done but little good.