Copyright, 1897, by Harper & Brothers. All Rights Reserved.
| published weekly. | NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1897. | five cents a copy. |
| vol. xviii.—no. 908. | two dollars a year. |
OLD PORTSMOUTH.
A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
BY SIR WALTER BESANT.
Portsmouth, as I remember the place in the days of my early youth—say,somewhere about the years 1844 to 1850—was surely the liveliest place,the most full of action, movement, and life, of any in her Majesty'sdominions, which were then half as wide as they are at present. Not as aplace of industry; there was never, if you please, any industry at allcarried on in that town outside the Dock-yard, except of course theindustry of fleecing the sailor. This was a merry and an exhilaratingsport, because the sailor himself enjoyed being fleeced, enteredthoroughly into the spirit of the game, and neither resented norregretted what he knew would be the end of it—viz., the loss of all hismoney. Nor, again, could the town be considered picturesque. Somehow,Portsmouth always escaped any beauty of buildings and streets. Therewas, it is true, a late eighteenth-century look about most[Pg 498] of thestreets; there was one old church within the Walls; there was a squarelow tower at the end of High Street which looked well; there were Gatesin the Walls; and there was the Domus Dei, the ancient garrisonchapel, then not yet "discovered" or restored. There must have been, Isuppose, a time when the