SPEECH: COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS. LONDON, DECEMBER 30, 1854.
[The following speech was made by Mr. Dickens at the Anniversary
Dinner in commemoration of the foundation of the Commercial
Travellers' Schools, held at the London Tavern on the above date.
Mr. Dickens presided on this occasion, and proposed the toasts.]
I think it may be assumed that most of us here present know
something about travelling. I do not mean in distant regions or
foreign countries, although I dare say some of us have had
experience in that way, but at home, and within the limits of the
United Kingdom. I dare say most of us have had experience of the
extinct "fast coaches," the "Wonders," "Taglionis," and "Tallyhos,"
of other days. I daresay most of us remember certain modest
postchaises, dragging us down interminable roads, through slush and
mud, to little country towns with no visible population, except
half-a-dozen men in smock-frocks, half-a-dozen women with umbrellas
and pattens, and a washed-out dog or so shivering under the gables,
to complete the desolate picture. We can all discourse, I dare
say, if so minded, about our recollections of the "Talbot," the
"Queen's Head," or the "Lion" of those days. We have all been to
that room on the ground floor on one side of the old inn yard, not
quite free from a certain fragrant smell of tobacco, where the
cruets on the sideboard were usually absorbed by the skirts of the
box-coats that hung from the wall; where awkward servants waylaid
us at every turn, like so many human man-traps; where county
members, framed and glazed, were eternally presenting that petition
which, somehow or other, had made their glory in the county,
although nothing else had ever come of it.
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