The police were notified, and I offered 2,000 francs reward for the recovery of the property. A day or two afterwards a man went into a jeweller’s shop and offered for sale, among other things, a gold snuff-box, mounted with turquoises, and presented by the Duke of Devonshire to the General. The jeweller, seeing the General’s initials on the box, sharply questioned the man, who became alarmed and ran out of the shop. An alarm was raised, and the man was caught. He made a clean breast of it, and in the course of a few hours the entire property was returned, to the great delight of the General and myself. Wherever we exhibited afterwards, no matter how respectable the audience, the case of presents was always carefully watched.
While I was in Brussels I could do no less than visit the battle-field of Waterloo, and I proposed that our party should be composed of Professor Pinte, Mr. Stratton, father of General Tom Thumb, Mr. H. G. Sherman, and myself. Going sight-seeing was a new sensation to Stratton, and as it was necessary to start by four o’clock in the morning, in order to accomplish the distance (sixteen miles) and return in time for our afternoon performance, he demurred.
“I don’t want to get up before daylight and go off on a journey for the sake of seeing a darned old field of wheat,” said Stratton.
“Sherwood, do try to be like somebody, once in your life, and go,” said his wife.
The appeal was irresistible, and he consented. We engaged a coach and horses the night previous, and started punctually at the hour appointed. We stopped at the neat little church in the village of Waterloo, for the purpose of examining the tablets erected to the memory of some of the English who fell in the contest. Thence we passed to the house in which the leg of Lord Uxbridge (Marquis of Anglesey) was amputated. A neat little monument in the garden designates the spot where the shattered member had been interred. In the house is shown a part of the boot which is said to have once covered the unlucky leg. The visitor feels it but considerate to hand a franc or two to the female who exhibits the monument and limb. I did so, and Stratton, though he felt that he had not received the worth of his money, still did not like to be considered penurious, so he handed over a piece of silver coin to the attendant. I expressed a desire to have a small piece of the boot to exhibit in my Museum; the lady cut off, without hesitation, a slip three inches long by one in width. I handed her a couple more francs, and Stratton desiring, as he said, to “show a piece of the boot in old Bridgeport,” received a similar slip, and paid a similar amount. I could not help thinking that if the lady was thus liberal in dispensing pieces of the “identical boot” to all visitors, this must have been about the ninety-nine thousandth boot that had been cut as the “Simon pure” since 1815.
With the consoling reflection that the female purchased all the cast-off boots in Brussels and its vicinity, and rejoicing that somebody was making a trifle out of that accident besides the inventor of the celebrated “Anglesey leg,” we passed on towards the battle-field, lying about a mile distant.
Arriving at Mont Saint Jean, a quarter of a mile from the ground, we were beset by some eighteen or twenty persons, who offered their services as guides, to indicate the most important localities. Each applicant professed to know the exact spot where every man had been placed who had taken part in the battle, and each, of course, claimed to have been engaged in that sanguinary contest, although it had occurred thirty years before, and some of these fellows were only, it seemed, from twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age! We accepted an old man, who, at first declared that he was killed in the battle, but perceiving our looks of incredulity, consented to modify his statement so far as to assert that he was horribly wounded, and lay upon the ground three days before receiving assistance.
Once upon the ground, our guide, with much gravity, pointed out the place where the Duke of Wellington took his station during a great part of the action; the locality where the reserve of the British army was stationed; the spot where Napoleon placed his favorite guard; the little mound on which was erected a temporary observatory for his use during the battle; the portion of the field at which Blucher entered with the Prussian army; the precise location of the Scotch Greys; the spot where fell Sir Alexander Gordon, Lieut. Col. Canning, and many others of celebrity. I asked him if he could tell me where Captain Tippitiwichet, of the Connecticut Fusileers, was killed. “Oui, Monsieur,” he replied, with perfect confidence, for he felt bound to know, or to pretend to know, every particular. He then proceeded to point out exactly the spot where my unfortunate Connecticut friend had breathed his last. After indicating the locations where some twenty more fictitious friends from Coney Island, New Jersey, Cape Cod and Saratoga Springs, had given up the ghost, we handed him his commission and declined to give him further trouble. Stratton grumbled at the imposition as he handed out a couple of francs for the information received.
Upon quitting the battle-field we were accosted by a dozen persons of both sexes with baskets on their arms or bags in their hands, containing relics of the battle for sale. These consisted of a great variety of implements of war, pistols, bullets, etc., besides brass French eagles, buttons, etc. I purchased a number of them for the Museum, and Stratton was equally liberal in obtaining a supply for his friends in “Old Bridgeport.” We also purchased maps of the battle-ground, pictures of the triumphal mound surmounted by the colossal Belgic Lion in bronze, etc., etc. These frequent and renewed taxations annoyed Stratton very much, and as he handed out a five franc piece for a “complete guide-book,” he remarked, that “he guessed the battle of Waterloo had cost a darned sight more since it was fought than it did before!”
But his misfortunes did not terminate here. When we had proceeded four or five miles upon our road home, crash went the carriage. We alighted, and found that the axle-tree was broken. It was now a quarter past one o’clock. The little General’s exhibition was advertised to commence in Brussels at two o’clock, and could not take place without us. We were unable to walk the distance in double the time at our disposal, and as no carriage was to be got in that part of the country, I concluded to take the matter easy, and forego all idea of exhibiting before evening. Stratton, however, could not bear the thought of losing the chance of taking in six or eight hundred francs, and he determined to take matters in hand, in order, if possible, to get our party into Brussels in time to save the afternoon exhibition. He hastened to a farm-house, accompanied by the interpreter, Professor Pinte, Sherman and myself leisurely bringing up the rear. Stratton asked the old farmer if he had a carriage. He had not. “Have you no vehicle?” he inquired.
“Yes, I have that vehicle,” he replied, pointing to an old cart filled with manure, and standing in his barnyard.
“Thunder! is that all the conveyance you have got?” asked Stratton. Being assured that it was, Stratton concluded that it was better to ride in a manure cart than not get to Brussels in time.
“What will you ask to drive us to Brussels in three-quarters of an hour?” demanded Stratton.
“It is impossible,” replied the farmer; “I should want two hours for my horse to do it in.”
“But ours is a very pressing case, and if we are not there in time we lose more than five hundred francs,” said Stratton.
The old farmer pricked up his ears at this, and agreed to get us to Brussels in an hour, for eighty francs. Stratton tried to beat him down, but it was of no use.
“Oh, go it, Stratton,” said Sherman; “eighty francs you know is only sixteen dollars, and you will probably save a hundred by it, for I expect a full house at our afternoon exhibition to-day.”
“But I have already spent about ten dollars for nonsense,” said Stratton, “and we shall have to pay for the broken carriage besides.”
“But what can you do better?” chimed in Professor Pinte.
“It is an outrageous extortion to charge sixteen dollars for an old horse and cart to go ten miles. Why, in old Bridgeport I could get it done for three dollars,” replied Stratton, in a tone of vexation.
“It is the custom of the country,” said Professor Pinte, “and we must submit to it.”
By the way, this was a favorite