File:Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries- Volume 7, page 27, February 16-19, 1855.jpg

Transcription:

till you might think all London was present. Cabs also were present, wherein moustache’d swells with ladies, enjoyed the spectacle. In the rear streets adjacent to the fire, there was a tumultuous assemblage, low Londoners, harlots plying their vocation, firemen incrusted with ice, and uproar. Braidwood’s nephew had lost his life, a stack of burning timber falling upon him. I spent two hours at the fire, and then through the biting cold homewards.

17. Saturday. Out in the afternoon; called on Annoots, then to deliver Miss Emma Brown’s letter to her sister in law. Charley [Damoreau]’s elder brother lives in New Bond Street; his wife having a shop, wherein ladies coiffeurs are displayed. Within I presented the letters, and Mrs Brown retiring, left me sitting on a stool in the shop, where behind a large mirror were two very pretty and tastily dressed young ladies. Returning Mrs B took my address, and so our interview ended. [Matthew] Whitelaw not at home. Tea and the “Newcomes” at coffee-house, call at Jack Boutcher’s, then to Harry Price’s, where I stayed till midnight.

18. Sunday. Within doors.

19. Monday. During the afternoon accompanied my mother [Naomi Butler Gunn] to Manchester Street, there to visit her uncle [Thomas] Fielder, my dead grandmother’s brother. There is an aspect of faded gentility about the street and neighbourhood appropriate to the house. By a pretty and smartly dressed housemaid we were handed over to the care of a plump footman; thence shown to an upper room, where were Mr Fielder, his wife, and daughter sate; he fronting a bad fire, in an arm chair capable of being propelled at pleasure. One part of the old man’s side is paralysed, and he is otherwise infirm, and now eighty-one years old. His wife, a