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Show AT BIRTHPLACE OF DICKENS Almcit a 8hrlne, Where Many of the Hurrying Crowds Pause to Dp Reverence. A great signboard partly covers the little houso where Charles Ulckene was born. "Charles Dickens' Hlrth placo," it Bays, and all tho hurrying world entering old Portsmouth pauses to look nt It. Tho street, Commercial road, might bo a street In any lnrgc city, and tho houso is no alien edifice in tho vista of ugliness. A hundrcc ' yenrs ago tho traffic may have beer quieter and tho flowers in tho Iron1 1 gnrdcnB not qulto so dusty n centurj lends us back such a very long rond In tho spring of 1812 wo picture Mrs j John Dickens, wlfo of tho huinbh : clork In tho navy pay office, brlnglni ! her baby boy her first son to thi Bmallr windows for n gllmpso of thi ' London stage coach bound for tb 1 Portsmouth dockynrd. Llttlo did th tired mother think ns sho held hie thero that his life would one day at f feet some of the passengers on tb couch, tho pcoplo who walked or rodi 1 in the street, the thousands golni about their business In Portsmoutl and the tens of thousands upon thoue L ands all over tho country. Whoeve mado bo many men laugh and weep n Dickens? What pen has opened tb doors into as many Uvea? No hear t has every been closer to tho facts o 1 .human life than thnt of the beard ' less boy who shyly wlukcd nt his Sam Welter and sent him forth with laugh- I tor that wbb to blow Into a gnlo. On Weller'B footsteps they come, thoBo common nnd yet uncommon types ho drew forth from tho bono and sinew of Great Britain. Tho boy born in Commercial road was to be tho npos- tlo of everyday pcoplo, and tho multl- I tudo of tradesmen ho wroto of would make a trades' directory. Tho ' I Ladles' World. j |