Visiting slums, seeing death from want and misery on all sides, is certainly not the most pleasant way of spending the festive season. In company with detectives, clergymen, or self-sacrificing district visitors, you may swallow the pill with the silver on; but try it single-handed, and it is a very different affair. I was taken for some demon rent-collector prowling about, and was peered at through broken windows and doors, and received with language warm enough to thaw the icicles. The sketches I made during the weeks I spent in the haunts of want and misery would have made a startling volume, but time and money were thrown away, and only the perfunctory pictures were published. The public have no idea, or seldom think, of the great trouble and expense incurred in faithfully depicting everyday scenes. Still, it is not possible for a "special" even to see everything, or to be in two places simultaneously; and consequently, in ordinary pictorial representations, dummy figures are frequently looked upon as true portraits. One boat race, for example, is very much like another. Some years ago I executed a panoramic series of sketches of the University Race from start to finish, and as they were urgently wanted, the drawings had to be sent in the same day. Early in the morning, before the break of fast, I found myself at Putney, rowing up to Mortlake, taking notes of the different points on the way--local colour through a fog. Getting home before the Londoners started for the scene, I was at work, and the drawings--minus the boats--were sent in shortly after the news of the race. The figures were imaginary and unimportant, but one correspondent wrote to point out the exact spot where he stood, and complained of my leaving out the black band on his white hat, and placing him too near a pretty girl, adding that his wife, who had not been present, had recognised his portrait.
Yes, I must confess, one has often to draw upon the imagination even in serious "realism," Some years ago I went with a colleague of the pen to illustrate and describe the dreadful scenes which were said to take place in St. James's Park, where the poor people were seen to sleep all night on the seats. We arrived about 2 A.M. It was a beautiful moonlight night, but though we walked up and down for hours not a soul came in sight. My companion said, "It's a bad business; we cannot do anything with this." I replied, "We must not go away without something to show; now if you will lie down I will make a sketch of you, and then I will lie down and you can describe me."