Retitled 'On an Amateur Beat' in collected editions of the series.

Between 1866 and 1868, some eight acres of narrow streets and courts were cleared 'hard by Temple Bar' in preparation for the building of the Royal Courts of Justice, to ambitious designs by George E. Street; construction work continued until 1882 (Hill, 35.5).

The motivation for the return to Limehouse in the present item was a letter of complaint following the publication of references to lead poisoning in the essay 'A Small Star in the East'. Robert A. Johnson of Johnson & Sons, one of two sons running the firm of white lead manufacturers to which Dickens had alluded, wrote on 24 December 1868 to inform Dickens of thirteen distinct health and safety precautions taken to protect workers in their dangerous occupation, and to object to the bad impression given by Dickens's article of the condition of the sick employee whose brain was described 'coming out at her ear':

The girl who was ill was at work yesterday and appeared quite well. Our medical man saw her and tells us the discharge from the ears would not arise from the Lead, but probably from some pressure on the head; the girl having been used to carrying great weights in connection with her work at sack making, which profession she also follows. (quoted in George F. Young, 'Limehouse Luck or the Lead Mills Located', The Dickensian, Vol. 30 [1934], pp. 174-175)

Johnson concluded the letter by inviting Dickens, '[k]nowing the great interest you take in the welfare and improvement of the poorer classes', to visit the firm's offices at 4 Waterloo Place and their factory in Burdett Road, to test 'the accuracy of our statements' and to interview employees:

We also venture to add that we think ourselves ...entitled to a little sympathy in the matter and that it is somewhat hard after all we have done, to be held up, though certainly not by name, to the public as employing those who have no choice between starvation and being ulcerated and paralysed for 1/6 a day' (Young, 'Limehouse Luck', p. 175)

The letter was accompanied by a note from a Mr J. S. Cummings, the firm's 'Medical Man'. Dickens replied on 29 December, assuring the owners that he had 'not the slightest doubt of the strict accuracy of every word of your communication' but reminding them that

The Lead Mills were a mere abstraction to me when I wrote the paper ... and that I did not then know where they were, or the name of your firm. But I was so anxious to be just, that although I was attended ... by a physician, and although we saw other clear indications of Lead Poisoning besides the one instance named (and that only in the words of the Irishwoman; not in mine or with remark of mine), I forebore to state them (Nonesuch, Vol. III, p. 692).

Dickens went on to accept the invitation, stating that he would arrive in about three weeks time, giving a 'few hours notice of my coming', but then returned to the defence of his journalistic method, pointing out that Cummings's note was less reasonable than the Johnsons' because he does not

sufficiently discriminate between the Irishwoman and her visitor, and surely cannot in reason suppose that the caller, in graphically presenting her exact words, endorses them! If they were presented otherwise than as a piece of character, can he possibly suppose that a writer at all accustomed to read or observe, would record that a young woman's brains were coming out at her ear. (Nonesuch, Vol. III, p. 693)

In the following decades, some improvement in safety standards came about through the replacement of the old Dutch process of manufacture by the American 'MacIvor' process, but cases of lead-poisoning persisted until the 1890s, when publicity surrounding R. H. Sherard's exposés in White Slaves of England (1897) attracted the attention of a Parliamentary Commission (see Ch. 5, 'The White-Lead Workers of Newcastle'). In the Preface to the second edition of his book, Sherard was able to rejoice that, following the passing of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897, 'it will be illegal to employ women in the white lead factories' (1898; p. 23).

Dickens's revisions to the article as it passed from manuscript through to publication, show signs of an effort to make the advice being offered to the newly-appointed Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Lt-Col. Edmund Henderson, seem less critical and presumptuous (see MS and Textual Note, below).

MS and Textual Note: Draft [?Jan-Feb 1869], Robert H. Taylor Collection, Princeton University Library. Ff. 1-10; Corrected proof [9 May 1869], Huntington Library, San Marino, Los Angeles, MS RB 114202. All ten slips of MS are heavily corrected, and a final paragraph of 12 lines deleted by seven vertical pen strokes and one horizontal. The paragraph is further obscured by a superimposed cutting from the AYR of 19 December 1868, excerpting from 'A Small Star in the East' (from 'some of them gits lead-pisoned soon' ...to 'niver no less, Sur') those remarks of the Irish mother concerning lead-poisoning which Dickens wanted repeated in the present item. Around and below the cutting, some of the text can be deciphered, showing that the essay originally reverted to the topic with which it opens: the problem of how best to police the streets. On the return leg of his journey, the narrator sees 'assembled a crowd of well known thieves and violent characters' and adds:

I have observed this daily on many days of my life. Might I take the liberty of suggesting to the authorities that it strikes me with some astonishment, and that for my own part I would lay these gentry by the heels, or know the reason why? Which I certainly don't know at present.

Referring to the recent appointment of a new police Chief Commissioner for London, MS has '...I can tell him, if I reigned in Scotland Yard,' while the corrected proof and copytext have '...I can tell him, if I could deal with him physically.' At proof stage, Dickens added the phrase 'in whom I thoroughly believe as a tried and efficient public servant' to the end of the MS sentence '...which I respectfully offer to the new Chief Commissioner'; copytext later amends MS 'believe' to 'confide'. At proof stage, Dickens also altered the MS phrase 'Now, suppose that a Chief Commissioner, on coming into office, sent round a circular...' (my italics) by deleting the italicised section. MS has '...and give him a guinea, as if he didn't expect it': proof alters to '...and give him a guinea, wrapped in paper'; MS has '...conversion of Pig-Lead into White Lead, for the use of Painters, Gas-Fitters, and so forth' (my italics): italicised phrase deleted at proof stage.

Literary allusions:

• 'to cross the kennel at the bottom of the Canongate ...as Scott relates': in Walter Scott's Chronicles of the Canongate (1827 [1826]), Chrystal Croftangry relates that while being pursued for debt he remained within the confines of the palace of Holyrood, while 'all Elysium seemed opening on the other side of the kennel... I was so childish as even to make an occasional excursion across, were it only for a few yards' (Preface).

Author: John Drew; © J. M. Dent/Orion Publishing Group, Dickens' Journalism Volume IV: 'The Uncommercial Traveller' and Other Papers, 1859-1870, 2000.

DJO gratefully acknowledges permission to reproduce this material.

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