making countless flags, and
I don't know what else. Layard is chief commissioner of the domestic
police. The country police predict an immense crowd." There were between
two and three thousand people; and somehow, by a magical kind of
influence, said Layard, Dickens seemed to have bound every creature
present, upon what honour the creature had, to keep order. What was the
special means used, or the art employed, it might have been difficult to
say; but that was the result. Writing on New Year's Day, Dickens himself
described it to me. "We had made a very pretty course, and taken great
pains. Encouraged by the cricket matches experience, I allowed the
landlord of the Falstaff to have a drinking-booth on the ground. Not to
seem to dictate or distrust, I gave all the prizes (about ten pounds in
the aggregate) in money. The great mass of the crowd were labouring men
of all kinds, soldiers, sailors, and navvies. They did not, between
half-past ten, when we began, and sunset, displace a rope or a stake;
and they left every barrier and flag as neat as they found it. There was
not a dispute, and there was no drunkenness whatever. I made them a
little speech from the lawn, at the end of the games, saying that please
God we would do it again next year. They cheered most lustily and
dispersed. The road between this and Chatham was like a Fair all day;
and surely it is a fine thing to get such perfect behaviour out of a
reckless seaport town. Among other oddities we had a Hurdle Race for
Strangers. One man (he came in second) ran 120 yards and leaped over ten
hurdles, in twenty seconds, _with a pipe in his mouth, and smoking it
all the time_. 'If it hadn't been for your pipe,' I said to him at the
winning-post, 'you would have been first.' 'I beg your pardon, sir,' he
answered, 'but if it hadn't been for my pipe, I should have been
nowhere.'" The close of the letter had this rather memorable
announcement. "The sale of the Christmas number was, yesterday evening,
255,380." Would it be absurd to say that there is something in such a
vast popularity in itself electrical, and, though founded on books, felt
where books never reach?

It is also very noticeable that what would have constituted the strength
of Dickens if he had entered public life, the attractive as well as the
commanding side of his nature, was that which kept him most within the
circle of home pursuits and enjoyments. This "better part" of him had
now long survived that