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diff --git a/36683-0.txt b/36683-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..186d824 --- /dev/null +++ b/36683-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4474 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Days and Nights in London, by J. Ewing Ritchie + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Days and Nights in London + or, Studies in Black and Gray + + +Author: J. Ewing Ritchie + + + +Release Date: July 10, 2011 [eBook #36683] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAYS AND NIGHTS IN LONDON*** + + +Transcribed from the 1880 Tinsley Brothers edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + DAYS AND NIGHTS + IN LONDON; + + + OR, + + _STUDIES IN BLACK AND GRAY_. + + * * * * * + + BY + J. EWING RITCHIE, + + AUTHOR OF + “THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON,” “RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON,” + “BRITISH SENATORS,” ETC. + + * * * * * + + LONDON: + TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. + 1880. + [_All rights reserved_.] + + * * * * * + + CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, + CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +London has vastly altered since the Author, some quarter of a century +ago, described some of the scenes which occurred nightly in its midst of +which respectable people were ignorant, which corrupted its young men and +young women, and which rendered it a scandal and a horror to civilisation +itself. The publication of his work, “The Night Side of London”—of which +nearly eight thousand copies were sold—did something, by calling the +attention of Members of Parliament and philanthropists to the subject, to +improve the scenes and to abate the scandal. As a further contribution +to the same subject, the present volume is published. Every Englishman +must take an interest in London—a city which it has taken nearly two +thousand years to build; whose sons, to enrich which, have sailed on +every sea and fought or traded on every land; and which apparently, as +the original home and centre of English-speaking people, must grow with +the growth and strengthen with the strength of the world. + +WRENTHAM HOUSE, HENDON, + _February_, 1880. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + I. THE WORLD OF LONDON 1 + II. THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE 24 + III. OUR MUSIC-HALLS 39 + IV. MORE ABOUT MUSIC-HALLS 54 + V. SUNDAYS WITH THE PEOPLE 90 + VI. THE LOW LODGING-HOUSE 117 + VII. STUDIES AT THE BAR 155 + VIII. IN AN OPIUM DEN 170 + IX. LONDON’S EXCURSIONISTS 182 + X. ON THE RIVER STEAMERS 196 + XI. STREET SALESMEN 208 + XII. CITY NUISANCES 225 + XIII. OUT OF GAOL 261 + XIV. IN A GIPSY CAMP 271 + XV. THE STREET BOYS OF LONDON 280 + + + +I.—THE WORLD OF LONDON. + + +London, for a “village,” as old Cobbett used to call it, is a pretty +large one; and, viewed from the lowest stand-point—that of the dull +gospel according to Cocker—may well be described as truly wonderful. It +eats a great deal of beef, and drinks a great deal of beer. You are +staggered as you explore its warehouses. I stood in a granary the other +day in which there were some eighty thousand sacks of wheat; and in the +Bank of England I held in my hand, for a minute—all too brief—a million +of pounds. It is difficult to realise what London is, and what it +contains. Figures but little assist the reader. + +Perhaps you best realise what the city is as you come up the Thames as +far as London Bridge. Perhaps another way is to stand on that same +bridge and watch the eager hordes that cross of a morning and return at +night, and then, great as that number is, to multiply it a hundredfold. +A dozen miles off gardeners tell you that there are plants that suffer +from London air and London fog. Indeed it is difficult to say where +London begins and where it ends. If you go to Brighton, undoubtedly it +is there in all its glory; when yachting far away in the western islands +of Scotland and the Hebrides, the first signature I found in the +strangers’ book at a favourite hotel was that of Smith, of London. There +he was, as large as life, just as we see him any day in Cheapside. One +bitter cold winter day I revisited, not exactly my childhood’s happy +home, but a neighbouring sea port to which I was once much attached. +“Oh,” said I to myself, as I rushed along in the train, “how glad people +will be to see me; how bright will be the eyes into which I once loved to +look, and how warm the clasp of the hand which once thrilled through all +my being!” Alas! a generation had risen who knew not Joseph. I dined +sadly and alone at the hotel, and after dinner made my way to the pier to +mingle my melancholy with that of the melancholy ocean. The wind was +high; the sand in clouds whirled madly along the deserted streets. At +sea even nothing was to be seen; but at the far end of the pier, with his +back turned to me, gazing over as if he wanted to make out the coast of +Holland—some hundred and fifty miles opposite—was a short man, whom I +knew at once from his apoplectic back—Brown, of Fleet Street—come there +all the way from the congenial steak puddings and whisky toddy of The +Cheshire Cheese for a little fresh air! I felt angry with Brown. I was +ready almost to throw him over into the raging surf beneath, but I knew +that was vain. There were “more to follow.” Nowadays London and London +people are everywhere. What is London? It covers, says one, within a +fifteen-miles’ radius of Charing Cross, so many hundred square miles. It +numbers more than four million inhabitants. It comprises a hundred +thousand foreigners from every quarter of the globe. It contains more +Roman Catholics than there are in all Rome; more Jews than there are in +all Palestine; and, I fear, more rogues than there are even in America. +On a Sunday you will hear Welsh in one church, Dutch in another, the +ancient dialect of St. Chrysostom in another; and on a Saturday you may +plunge into low dancing-houses at the East-End which put to shame +anything of the kind in Hamburg or Antwerp or Rotterdam. In many of the +smoking-rooms bordering on Mark Lane and Cheapside you hear nothing but +German. I know streets and squares inhabited by Dutch and German Jews, +or dark-eyed Italians, or excitable Frenchmen, where + + The tongue that Shakespeare spake + +is as little understood as Sanscrit itself. At any moment I like I can +rush away from all European civilisation, and sit in a little room and +smoke opium with the heathen Chinee—whose smile all the while is +“childlike and bland”—as if I were thousands of miles away. On the other +side of St. Paul’s I have supped with hundreds of thieves at a time, who +carry on their work as if there was no such institution as that of the +police; I have listened to the story of the crowded lodgers, and I can +believe anything you like to tell me of the wealth, of the poverty, of +the virtue, of the vice of London. People say the metropolis has seven +thousand miles of streets. I have no doubt it has. People say it has on +Sunday sixty miles of shops open, and they may be right; at least I have +neither the time nor the inclination to test these figures. It also +rejoices, I hear, in as many public-houses as, if set in a line, would +reach from Charing Cross to Portsmouth. The people of London read or +write in the course of a year as many as two hundred and forty millions +of letters. All these letters are written, all these public-houses +supported, all these streets lined with houses inhabited by men who more +or less are connected with the city. It is there they live, if they +sleep fifty miles away, and it is a hard life some of them have +assuredly. A little while ago a poor woman was charged with pawning +shirts entrusted to her to make by an East-End merchant clothier. The +woman pleaded that her children were so hungry that she was tempted to +pawn some of the work in the hope of being able to redeem it by the time +the whole was completed. The work was machine-sewing. She hired the +machine at half-a-crown a week, and was paid by the prosecutor a shilling +a dozen for his shirts. + +“Nonsense,” said the magistrate; “that is only a penny each.” + +“And that is all it is, sir,” said the poor woman. + +“And you have to work a long day to make twelve. And is it really a +fact,” said the magistrate, turning to the merchant clothier, “that this +kind of work has fallen into such a deplorable condition that you can get +it done at so poor a rate?” + +“Your worship,” was the reply, “if I wanted a hundred hands at the price +I could get ’em by holding up my finger.” + +Nowhere does life run to such extremes;—nowhere is there such pauperism +as in London; nowhere is there such wealth; nowhere does man lift a +sublimer face to the stars; nowhere does he fall so low. In short, +London may be described as “one of those things which no fellah can +understand.” + +In beauty London now may almost vie with fair bewitching Paris. In all +other respects it leaves it far behind. It is the brain of England, the +seat of English rule, whence issue laws which are obeyed in four quarters +of the globe, and the fountain of thought which agitates and rules the +world. London is the head-quarters of commerce. Tyre and Sidon and +Carthage, the republics of Italy, the great cities of the Hanseatic +Confederation, Flemish Ghent or Bruges, or Antwerp or busy Amsterdam, +never in their canals, and harbours, and rivers, sheltered such burdened +argosies; in their streets never saw such wealthy merchants; in their +warehouses never garnered up such stores of corn and wine and oil. +London prices rule the globe, and are quoted on every exchange. It is a +city of contrasts. It has its quarters where pale-eyed students live and +move and have their being, and factories where the only thought is how +best to drag out a dull mechanical life. It has its underground cells +where misers hide their ill-gotten gains, and its abodes of fashion and +dissipation where the thoughtless and the gay dance and drink and sing, +as if time past taught them no lesson, and as if time to come could have +no terrors for them. It is a city of saints and sinners, where God and +Mammon have each their temples and their crowds of worshippers. Here lie +in wait the traffickers in men’s bodies and souls; and here live those +whose most anxious care is how best to assuage the pangs of poverty, how +best to cure the delirium of disease, how most successfully to reclaim +the fallen and the prodigal, how most assiduously to guard the young from +the grasp of the destroyer—how, in the language of the poet, to “allure +to brighter worlds and lead the way.” If there be a fire in Chicago, a +famine in India, a tornado in the West Indies, a wail of distress from +the North or the South, or the East or the West, London is the first city +to send succour and relief. + +In speaking of London we sometimes mean Smaller London and sometimes +Greater London. To avoid confusion we must clearly understand what is +meant by each. Smaller London comprises 28 Superintendent Registrars’ +Districts, 20 of them being in Middlesex, 5 in Surrey, and 3 in Kent; +viz. Kensington, Chelsea, St. George, Hanover Square, Westminster, +Marylebone, Hampstead, Pancras, Islington, Hackney, St. Giles, Strand, +Holborn, London City, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel, St. George +in the East, Stepney, Mile End and Poplar in Middlesex; St. Saviour, +Southwark, St. Olave, Southwark, Lambeth, Wandsworth, and Camberwell in +Surrey; and Greenwich, Lewisham, and Woolwich in Kent. It had an +estimated population in the middle of 1878 of 3,577,304. Greater London +comprises in addition to the above 14 Superintendent Registrars’ +Districts, 6 of them being in Middlesex, 4 in Surrey, 2 in Kent, and 2 in +Essex; viz. Staines, Uxbridge, Brentford, Hendon, Barnet, and Edmonton in +Middlesex; Epsom, Croydon, Kingston, and Richmond in Surrey; Bromley and +Bexley in Kent; and West Ham and Romford in Essex. It comprises the +whole of Middlesex, and such parishes of Surrey, Kent, Essex, and Herts +as are within 12 miles of Charing Cross. These additional districts had +an estimated population of 872,711 in the middle of the year 1878, so +that Greater London has therefore at the present time a population of +4,450,015. The population of the United Kingdom in the middle of 1878 +was estimated at 33,881,966. Greater London had therefore considerably +more than an eighth of the population of Great Britain and Ireland, and +more than a sixth of the population of England and Wales. This large +population is constantly and rapidly increasing; the estimated increase +in 1878 being 82,468. It is important to note that the increase is not +equal in all parts. The population is decreasing within the City; within +Smaller London it goes on increasing but at a decreasing rate, and in the +outer ring the population increases steadily at an increasing rate. The +population of the outer circle has increased more than 50 per cent. in +the last ten years. + +Even in its narrowest definition—as the small plot of ground between +Temple Bar and Aldgate pump—what a history London has! Of what scenes of +glory and of shame it has been the theatre! What brave men and lovely +women have played their part, heroic or the reverse, upon its stage! +When the City’s greatest architect dug deep into the earth to build the +foundations of his matchless cathedral, he laid bare the remains of +nations and generations that one after another had held the City as its +own. First he uncovered the graves of the early medieval Londoners; then +he came to the remains of our Saxon forefathers, of Ethelbert and St. +Augustine; next were found the remains of Romans and ancient Britons, and +last of all were found the mouldering remains of those who knew not Cæsar +and the city they call Rome. Again, the London of Victoria faintly +resembles the London of Queen Anne, as faintly perhaps as does the +Jerusalem of to-day represent the city in which our Saviour dwelt. No +wonder that our old chroniclers romanced not a little, and that many of +them did believe, as Geoffrey of Monmouth writes, that London was founded +by Brute, a descendant of Eneas, eleven hundred years before Christ, and +that he called it Troy Novant, whence came the name of the people to be +called Trinobantes. Equally widespread and equally unfounded was the +belief that from London were shipped away eleven thousand—some say +seventy thousand—British virgins (as an admirer of the virtues of my +countrywomen I stick to the highest figure)—whose bones may yet be seen +in Cologne—to the British warriors compelled to settle in Armorica. What +is clear, however, is that in London Diana had a temple, that the Saxons +won the city from the Britons, that the Tower of London is one of the +oldest buildings in Christendom, and that here Roman and Dane, and Saxon +and Norman have all more or less left their mark. Our early monarchs +trembled as they saw how the great city grew. When that slobbering James +came to the throne—whom his courtiers denominated the British Solomon—of +whom bishops and archbishops testified that his language was that of +inspiration, he exclaimed, “England will shortly be London, and London +England,” as he saw how people were adding house to house and street to +street, and flocking to them from all parts of England and Scotland; yet +the London of the Stuarts, neither in extent or magnificence or wealth, +bore the faintest resemblance to the London of to-day. + +Londoners are well looked after in the matter of taxes. The ratable +value of the metropolis, or rather the district of the Metropolitan +Board, is £23,960,109. Last year it raised in this way £477,835. The +School Board rate was something similar. Besides, there is a sewer rate +of twopence in the pound; a paving, watering, etc. rate of probably +ninepence; a lighting rate of threepence; then there are rates to pay +interest on the debts of extinct paving trusts; a rate for baths and +wash-houses, police rate and county rate, making a total of almost five +shillings and sixpence in the pound on the value of a house. While it +has an excess of beer-shops, gin-palaces, and music-halls, it has a great +deficiency as regards church and chapel accommodation. In Inner London +it is calculated 955,060 sittings are required. In Larger London the +deficiency, it is estimated, is much more. + +The number of police, according to the last return, was 10,336 in the +metropolis, showing an increase of 0.5 per cent. over last year; and in +the City 798, being seven over the last returns. The metropolitan police +are in the proportion of one for every 397 of the population of the +metropolitan police district; the City police of one for every 93 of the +population, as enumerated on the night of the census of 1871. The cost +of the metropolitan police was £1,077,399, of which 39.9 per cent. was +contributed from public revenue; the cost of the City police was £85,231, +towards which no contribution was made. From the criminal returns it +appears that for the metropolitan police district, with the City, the +number of known thieves and depredators, receivers of stolen goods, and +suspected persons, was 2,715, or one in 1,431 of the population, showing +an increase of 3.9 per cent. on the returns of the previous year. The +rule which has been followed now for 14 years, that persons known to have +been living honestly for one year at least subsequently to their +discharge after any conviction, should not be returned in the class of +known thieves and depredators, has been adhered to. The return of houses +of bad character in the metropolis, exclusive of those of ill-fame and of +those returned to Parliament under the Contagious Act, is 215, of which +66 are houses of receivers of stolen goods, showing a decrease of 22 in +the year. The total number of cases tried at the Central Criminal Court +was 10,151. From a classification of offences determined summarily we +learn that there were 5,622 persons proceeded against in the City, of +whom 1,093 were discharged, and the remainder convicted or otherwise +dealt with. There were 191 offences against the Adulteration of Food Act +in the metropolitan police district, 7 in the City; 5,874 against the +Elementary Education Act, none in the City; 1,234 cases of cruelty to +animals in the metropolitan district, 823 in the City; 33,520 persons +were drunk and disorderly in the metropolitan district, 431 in the City, +being an increase over the numbers for the last year of about 1,000 in +the first instance, and 35 in the second. + +From the prison returns we gather that the total of commitments to +Newgate for the year ended September 29th, 1877, was 1,394 males, and 218 +females, being in the case of the males a reasonable decrease from the +last year’s numbers; to Holloway, 1,896 males, 281 females, the latter +returns including 841 males and 45 females to the civil side for debt. +Under the heading of expenses we have £127 19s. for new buildings, +alterations, etc., in Newgate; and in Holloway, £199; ordinary repairs in +Newgate came to £149 11s. 4d., rent, rates, taxes, etc., £121 7s.; +Holloway repairs, £121 4s. 5d., rent and taxes, £74 2s. 11d., with +various other charges, making a total of expenses at Newgate of £6,514 +5s. 3d.; Holloway, £10,314 9s. 9d. From the table of funds charged with +prison expenses we learn that at Holloway the net profit of prisoners’ +labour was £2,038 1s. 9d. The county or liberty rates contributed £83 +16s. 8d. to Newgate; the City rate was £5,632 1s. 3d., the latter rate +was, in respect to Holloway, £6,239 5s. The Treasury paid £347 0s. 9d., +proportion of the charge for convicted prisoners at Newgate, £1,438 17s. +6d. for those at Holloway. + +The charitable contributions of England are to-day in excess of what the +whole revenue of the British Crown was under the Stuarts, only two +hundred years ago; over £600,000 per annum is derived from all such +sources by the medical charities of London alone; more than 1,200,000 +persons, exclusive of paupers, are annually recipient of assistance from +those medical charities. + +In other ways also is London truly wonderful. It seems as if the earth +toiled and moiled to simply supply her wants. Sail up the Baltic and ask +whither those vessels laden with tallow and corn and flax are steering, +and the answer is, The Thames. Float down the Mediterranean, and the +reply to the question would be still the same. Ascend the grand rivers +of the New World, and the destination of the stores of beef and cheese +and wheat is still the same. Canada supplies us with our deals; America +with half our food; Australia with our wool; the Cape with our diamonds; +the Brazils with coffee. Havannah sends her choice cigars, China her +teas, Japan her lacquered and ingenious ware, Italy her silks; and from +the vineyards of France, or the green hills that border the Rhine and the +Moselle, we are supposed to draw our supplies of sparkling wine. Spain +sends her sherry, Portugal her port. For us the spicy breezes blow soft +on Ceylon’s isle, the turtle fattens languidly under burning suns, the +whale wallows in the trough of frozen seas, the elephant feeds in African +jungles, and the ostrich darts as an arrow across the plain. In the +country village, in the busy mill, on sea or on land, it is the thought +of London that fires the brain and fills the heart, and nerves the muscle +and relieves the tedium of nightly or daily toil. As Cowper writes: + + Where has commerce such a mart, + So rich, so thronged, so drained, and so supplied, + As London—opulent, enlarged, and still + Increasing London? Babylon of old + Not more the glory of the earth than she, + A more accomplished world’s chief glory now. + +It is not our province to speculate as to the future. There are men who +tell us that Babylon is about to fall, and that it is time for the elect +to be off. It may be so. Time, the destroyer, has seen many a noble +city rise, and flourish, and pass away; but London, it must be admitted +nevertheless, never more truly in any sense deserves the epitaph of +“wonderful” than at the present time. + + + + +II.—THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE. + + +The Middlesex magistrates have shut up the Argyle Rooms. Mr. Bignell, +who has found it worth his while to invest £80,000 in the place, it is to +be presumed, is much annoyed, and has, in some respects, reason to be so. +Year after year noble lords and Middlesex magistrates have visited the +place, and have licensed it. Indeed, it had become one of the +institutions of the country—one of the places which Bob Logic and +Corinthian Tom (for such men still exist, though they go by other names) +would be sure to visit, and such as they and the women who were +_habitués_ will have to go elsewhere. It is said a great public scandal +is removed, but the real scandal yet remains. It is a scandal that such +a place ever flourished in the great metropolis of a land which professes +Christianity—which pays clergymen and deans, and bishops and archbishops +princely sums to extirpate that lust of the flesh and lust of the eye and +pride of life, which found their lowest form of development in the Argyle +Rooms. It was a scandal that men of position, who have been born in +English homes and nursed by English mothers, and been consecrated +Christians in baptism, and have been trained at English public schools +and universities, and worshipped in English churches and cathedrals, +should have helped to make the Argyle a flourishing institution. Mr. +Bignell created no vice—he merely pandered to what was in existence. It +was men of wealth and fashion who made the Argyle what it was. The +Argyle closed, the vice remains the same, and it will avail little to +make clean the outside of the whited sepulchre if within there be +rottenness and dead men’s bones. Be that as it may, there are few people +who will regret the defeat of Mr. Bignell and the closing of the Argyle. +It was not an improving spectacle in an age that has sacrificed +everything to worldly show, and that has come to regard brougham as the +one thing needful—as the outward and visible sign of an inward and +invisible grace—as a charter of respectability to everyone who rides in +it, whether purchased by the chastity of woman or the honour of man—to +see painted and bedizened females, most of them + + Born in a garret, in a kitchen bred, + +driving up in broughams from St. John’s Wood or Chelsea or Belgravia, +with their gallants, or “protectors,” to the well-known rendezvous, at a +late hour, to leave a little later for the various oyster-rooms in the +district, through a dense crowd of lookers-on, drunk or sober, poor or +rich, old or young, as the case might be. In no other capital in Europe +was such a sight to be seen. The lesson taught by such a spectacle was +neither moral nor improving at first sight, and it was not well that a +young, giddy girl, with good looks, and wishing, above all things, for +fine dresses and gay society—sick at heart of her lowly home and the +dreary drudgery of daily poverty—should there practically have learnt +that if she could but make up her mind to give her virtue to the winds, +there awaited her the companionship of men of birth and breeding and +wealth, and the gaudy, if short-lived, pomps and splendours of successful +vice. It is true that in the outside crowd there were, in rags and +tatters, in degradation and filth, shivering with cold, pale with want, +hideous with intemperance and disease, homeless and friendless and +destitute, withered hags old before their time, whom the policeman shrank +from touching as he bade them move on, who once were the admired of the +Argyle, and the pets and _protégées_ of England’s gilded youth; and here +and there in the crowd, with boots in holes and broken hat, and needy +coat buttoned as far as possible to the chin to conceal the absence of a +shirt, with hands thrust in empty pockets, sodden in face and feeble of +limb, were men who had been hauled from the Argyle to Bow Street and the +gaol. It is true thus side by side were the bane and the antidote; but +when did youth, flushed with wine and pleasure, pause on the road to +ruin? Young says: + + All men think all men mortal but themselves, + +and in like manner each man or woman in the glow of youth feels confident +that he or she can never fall, and thus rushes madly on, ignoring the +eternal truth that there is a Nemesis ever tracking the steps of the +wrongdoer, one from whose grasp we can never escape, that the pleasures +of sin are but for a season, and that the wages of sin are death. By the +beery dissipated crowd outside, I say, this obvious fact had been lost +sight of. What they wanted to see was the women and the men as they +turned out into the streets or drove away. Well, that sight exists no +longer, and to a certain extent it is a gain. The Haymarket in these +latter days was very different and a much more sober place than it was +when the Marquis of Waterford played his drunken pranks at Bob Croft’s, +or when the simple Windham was in the habit of spending his time and +wasting his money and degrading an honoured name at such a place as +Barns’s or The Blue Posts. Men not far advanced in life can remember the +Piccadilly Saloon, with its flashy women and medical students and +barristers from the Temple, and men about town and greenhorns from the +country—who in the small hours turned out into the streets, shouting +stentoriously, “We won’t go home till morning,” and putting their +decision into execution by repairing to the wine and coffee rooms which +lined both sides of the Haymarket and existed in all the adjacent +streets. In some there was a piano, at which a shabby performer was +hired to keep up the harmony of the evening and to give an appearance of +hilarity to what was after all a very slow affair. In others the company +were left to their own resources. At a certain hour the police +inspector, with a couple of constables, would look in, and it was comic +to see how unconscious he was apparently that every trace of intoxicating +drink had been removed, as nothing remained on the tables but a few +harmless cups of coffee. It was not till the industrious world had risen +to the performance of its daily task that the rag-tag and bob-tail of the +Haymarket retired to roost; and by the time that earls and holy bishops +and godly clergy were ready to drive down the Haymarket to take part in +meetings at Exeter Hall to send the Gospel to the heathen abroad, not a +trace was left of the outrageous display the night before of the more +fearful and sadder forms of heathenism at home. Undoubtedly the +Haymarket thirty or forty years ago was an awful place; undoubtedly it +will be a little quieter now that the Argyle Rooms are closed, and as the +glory of Windmill-street has fled. Undoubtedly we have gained a great +deal externally by magisterial action. Yet it is evident we need +something more than magisterial sanction for the interference of the +police. I am not partial to the men in blue. I doubt their efficacy as +agents for moral reform or the introduction of the millennium. They can +remove the symptoms, but they cannot touch the disease. It seems to me +that they often interfere—especially in the case of poor women—when there +is no occasion to do so; and no one, when it is requisite, can be more +stolidly blind and deaf and dumb than your ordinary policeman. Police +surveillance must mean more or less police bribery. It was once my fate +to live in a country town and to belong to a library, which was also +supported by the superintendent of police. On one occasion I had a book +which had previously been in that gentleman’s hands. In opening it a +letter fell out addressed to him. I did what I ought not to have done, +but as it was wide open, I read it, as anyone would. It was from a +publican in the town, begging the superintendent’s acceptance of a cask +of cider. Of course, on the next licensing-day no complaint would be +heard as to the character of that house. A journeyman engineer, in his +“Habits and Customs of the Working Classes,” gives us similar testimony +as he describes a drinking party during prohibited hours disturbed by the +appearance of a policeman, but reassured when told by the landlord that +he is one of “the right sort;” which means, continues the author, that +“he is one of that tolerably numerous sort who, provided a publican +‘tips’ them a ‘bob’ occasionally, and is liberal in the matter of drops +of something short when they are on night duty, will not see any +night-drinking that may be carried on in his establishment as long as it +is done with a show of decency.” I need say no more on that head; human +nature is the same all the world over. Out of the heart are the issues +of life, and no policeman or magistrate can make a drunken people sober, +or a low, sordid, and sensual race of men and women noble and pure in +thought and beautiful in life. For that we look to the Christian Church +in all its branches. To its ministers especially we appeal. Let them +leave theological wrangling, and the cloister where no living voice is +heard, and the well-lined study in which human nature, when it puts in an +appearance, has learned to assume a decent and decorous mask, and see +what are the amusements of the people, not so much on the Sabbath-day, +but on the week-night. The Argyle was but one place out of many. In our +great cities there are tens of thousands who live only for amusement, +whether they be the working classes or in the higher walks of life. A +glance at some of these places of resort may help us to understand what +are the amusements of the people, and whether the Church does well and +wisely in stamping them with her approval, or regarding them with her +frown. It is how a man spends his money, and not how he makes it, that +is the true index to his character. It is really impossible to imagine +amusements more foolish or more indicative of a low tone of mind morally +and intellectually than those which are most patronised at the present +day. What pleasure can there be in watching a man walking for a bet, or +in a woman risking her neck on a trapeze? Yet thousands go to see such a +sight. Even the theatres delight in displays equally revolting, perhaps +more so from a moral point of view. + +When General Grant was in Moscow lately, an acrobat placed four bottles +on a high table, and on top of these a chair, which he balanced sideways +while he stood on his head on one corner of it. He kept repeating this, +adding one chair at a time, until he got five on top of each other, and +still showed no signs of stopping; but General Grant got up and walked +away, saying he would rather read the death in the papers than witness +it. Our music-hall audiences are far more appreciative of the amusements +provided for them. + +The stage, I have said, may not escape censure. It has its illustrious +exceptions, but, as Mr. Chatterton has shown us, Shakespeare means +bankruptcy, and the majority of adaptations from the French are, it is +admitted on all hands, not of an improving character. The way also in +which the powers of the licenser are administered is, to say the least, +puzzling. It is impossible to represent some subjects on the stage +without injury to the morals and the manners of the spectators. In Mr. +Arthur Matthison’s adaptation of “Les Lionnes Pauvres,” the sin of +adultery was, it is true, held up to execration; but the license was +withheld because it was deemed undesirable to turn the English theatre +into a spectacular divorce court. Another prohibited play was founded on +“La Petite Marquise,” in which faithlessness to the marriage vow becomes +a fine art, and virtue and honour and purity in woman is held up to +ridicule. A lady who has married a man very much her senior, is +represented as encouraging the advances of a seducer, who, when she +throws herself in his arms, to avoid the expense of having to keep her, +sends her back to her husband; and yet the man who forces this filth on +the stage complains that he is badly treated, and questions whether the +world has ever given birth, or ever will give birth, to any conception as +obscene as that of the old man in “The Pink Dominoes”—a play which, it +must be remembered, has had a most successful run upon the stage. At the +theatre, the same writer observes, “I have beheld a young man hidden in a +chest spring out upon a woman half dressed, while from her lips broke +words I shudder to repeat. In peril I have watched with bated breath an +attempt to commit a rape elaborately represented before the public. In +‘Madame! attend Monsieur,’ I have seen a woman take a shirt in one hand, +and a shift in the other, and, standing in the very centre of the stage, +walk up to the float, deliberately put the two together, then with a wild +shriek, etc.;” and here the writer stops short. No one, of course, +expects people will stop away from the theatre; but why cannot the tone +of the place be a little higher, and the whole style of the amusement +more worthy of a civilised community? Why cannot we have a less liberal +display of legs and bosoms, and more generally in the matter of wit? +There have always been admirers of good acting. Why should they be +ignored, and the stage lowered to the level of the country bumpkin, the +imbecile youth of the day, and his female friends? + + + + +III.—OUR MUSIC-HALLS. + + +I fear the first impression made upon the mind of the careful observer is +that, as regards amusements, the mass of the people are deteriorating +very rapidly, that we are more frivolous and childish and silly in this +way than our fathers. One has no right to expect anything very +intellectual in the way of amusements. People seek them, and naturally, +as a relief from hard work. A little amusement now and then is a +necessity of our common humanity, whether rich or poor, high or low, +sinner or saint; and of course, in the matter of amusements, we must +allow people a considerable latitude according to temperament and age and +education, and the circumstances in which they are placed. In these days +no one advocates a Puritanical restraint and an abstinence from the +pleasures of the world. We have a perfect right to everything that can +lighten the burden of life, and can make the heart rejoice. It was not a +pleasant sign of the times, however, when the people found an amusement +in bull-baiting, cock-fighting, boxing, going to see a man hanged; nor is +it a pleasant sign of the tunes when, night after night, tens of +thousands of our fellow-countrymen are forced into shrieks of laughter by +exhibitions as idiotic as they are indecent. A refined and educated +people will seek amusements of a refining character. If the people, on +the contrary, rejoice in the slang and filthy innuendoes, and low dancing +and sensational gymnastics of the music-hall, what are we to think? The +music-hall is quite an invention of modern days. In times not very +remote working men were satisfied with going into a public-house—having +there their _quantum suff._ of less adulterated beer than they can get +now—and sometimes they got into good society at such places. For +instance, we find Dr. Johnson himself a kind of chairman of an ale-house +in Essex Street, Strand, where, for a small fee, you might walk up and +see the Doctor as large as life and hear him talk. At a later day the +bar-parlour, or whatever it might be called, of the public-house, was the +place in which men gathered to talk politics, and to study how they could +better themselves. When Bamford, the Lancashire Radical, came to town in +1817, the working men were principally to be found discussing politics in +all the London public-houses. One such place he visited and describes: +“On first opening the door,” he writes, “the place seemed dimmed by a +suffocating vapour of tobacco curling from the cups of long pipes, and +issuing from the mouths of the smokers in clouds of abominable odour, +like nothing in the world more than one of the unclean fogs of the +streets, though the latter were certainly less offensive and probably +less hurtful. Every man would have his half-pint of porter before him; +many would be speaking at once, and the hum and confusion would be such +as gave an idea of there being more talkers than thinkers, more speakers +than listeners. Presently, ‘order’ would be called, and comparative +silence restored; a speaker, stranger, or citizen would be announced with +much courtesy or compliment. ‘Hear, hear, hear,’ would follow, with +clapping of hands and knocking of knuckles on the tables till the +half-pints danced; then a speech with compliments to some brother orator +or popular statesman; next a resolution in favour of Parliamentary +reform, and a speech to second it; an amendment on some minor point would +follow; a seconding of that; a breach of order by some individual of warm +temperament, half-a-dozen would rise to set him right, a dozen to put +them down; and the vociferation and gesticulation would become loud and +confounding.” Such things are out of fashion nowadays. Political +discussion requires a certain amount of intellectual capacity. In London +there are but few discussion forums now, and the leading one is so +fearfully ventilated and so heavily charged with the fumes of stale +tobacco and beer, that it is only a few who care to attend. I remember +when there were three very close together and well attended. I remember +also when we had a music-hall in the City. It was not a particularly +lively place of resort. We used to have “The Bay of Biscay” and “The +Last Rose of Summer,” and now and then a comic song, while the visitor +indulged in his chop or beef-steak and the usual amount of alcoholic +fluid considered necessary on such occasions. But now we have changed +all that, and the simple-hearted frequenter of Dr. Johnson’s Tavern +half-a-century back would be not a little astonished with the modern +music-hall, which differs _in toto cælo_ from the public-house to which +in old-fashioned days a plain concert-room was attached. + +A glance at the modern music-hall will show us whether we have improved +on our ancestors. In one respect you will observe it is the same. +Primarily it is a place in which men and women are licensed to drink. +The music is an after-thought, and if given is done with the view to keep +the people longer in these places and to make them drink more. +Externally the music-hall is generally a public-house. It may have a +separate entrance, but it is a public-house all the same, and you will +find that you can easily go from one to the other. In the music-hall +itself the facilities for drink are on every side. There are generally +two or three bars at which young ladies are retained to dispense whatever +beverages may be required. In the stalls there are little tables on +which the patrons of the establishment place their glasses of grog or +beer. A boy comes round with cigars and programmes for sale. All the +evening waiters walk up and down soliciting your orders. It is thus to +the drink, and not to the payment made for admission, that the proprietor +looks to recoup himself for his outlay—and that is considerable. A +popular music-hall singer makes his forty pounds a week; not, however, by +singing at one place all the week, but by rushing from one to the other, +and the staff kept at any music-hall of any pretensions is considerable. +Internally, the music-hall is arranged as a theatre—with its stage, +orchestra, pit, galleries, and boxes. + +“Don’t you think,” said the manager of one of the theatres most warmly +patronised by the working classes, to a clerical friend of mine, “don’t +you think I am doing good in keeping these people out of the +public-houses all night?” + +My clerical friend was compelled to yield a very reluctant assent. In +the case of the music-hall nothing of the kind can be said in +extenuation. It is only a larger and handsomer and more attractive kind +of drinking shop. In one respect it may be said to have an advantage. +Mostly of a night, about the bars of common public-houses and +gin-palaces, there are many unfortunate women drinking either by +themselves or with one another, or with their male companions. In the +music-hall “the unfortunate female” element—except in the more central +ones, where they swarm like wolves or eagles in search of their prey—is +absent, or, at any rate, not perceptible. The workman takes there his +wife and family, and the working man the young woman with whom he keeps +company. There can be no harm in that? you say. I am not quite sure. +Let me give one case as an illustration of many similar which have come +under my own observation. + +A girl one evening went with a friend, an omnibus conductor, to a +music-hall. She was well plied with drink, which speedily took an effect +on her brain, already affected by the gas and glare, and life and bustle +of the place. The girl was a fine, giddy, thoughtless girl of the +maid-of-all-work order. In the morning when she awoke she found herself +in a strange room with her companion of the preceding night. What was +the result? She dared not go back to her place. She was equally afraid +to go home. I need not ask the reader to say what became of her. Let +him question the unfortunate women who crowd the leading thoroughfares of +a night how they came to be what they are. It is a fact, I believe, that +no censorship is applied to music-hall performances, and that the only +censorship is that of the audience. The audience, be it remembered, +begins to drink directly the doors are opened, and remains drinking all +the time till they are closed; and you may be sure that in a mob of two, +or sometimes, as is the case, three thousand people, that the higher is +the seasoning and the lower the wit, and the more abundant the _double +entendre_, the greater is the applause, and the manager, who sits in an +arm-chair at the back of the orchestra and in front of the audience, +takes note of that. In the days of the Kembles, Mrs. Butler notes how +the tendency of actors was not so much to act well as to make points and +bring down the house. Especially does she deplore Braham’s singing as +much to be censured in this respect, and as unworthy of his high powers +and fame. In the music-hall this lower style of acting and singing +becomes a necessity. The people go to be amused, and the actor must +amuse them. If he can stand on his head and sing, immense would be the +applause. If he is unequal to this, he must attempt something equally +absurd, or he must have dogs and monkeys come to his aid; and perhaps +after all he will find himself outrivalled by a Bounding Brother or a +wonderful trapeze performer. If the music-hall proprietor in a northern +city had prevailed on Peace’s mistress, Miss Thompson, to have appeared +on his stage, what a fortune he would have made. + +The other night I went into one of the largest of our music-halls, not a +hundred miles away from what was once Rowland Hill’s Chapel. There must +have been more than three thousand people present. Not a seat was to be +had, and there was very little standing room. I paid a shilling for +admission, and was quite surprised to see how entirely the shilling seats +or standing places were filled with working men, many of whom had their +wives and sweethearts with them. The majority, of course, of the +audience was made up of young men, who, in the course of the evening +spent at least another shilling in beer and “baccy.” In these bad times, +when people, in the middle ranks of life are in despair at the hard +prospect before them, here were these working men spending their two +hundred pounds a night at the least at this music-hall. + +When I managed to squeeze my way in it was about the hour of ten, when +men who have to get up early to work ought to be in bed. The +performances were in full swing, and the enthusiasm of the audience, +sustained and stimulated by refreshment, was immense. A female or two +were the worse for liquor, but otherwise by that time the intoxicating +stage had not been gained. After some very uninteresting bicycling by +riders in curious dress, a man disguised as a nigger sang a lot of low +doggerel about his “gal.” In the course of his singing he stopped to +tell us that his “gal” had a pimple and that he liked pimples, as they +were signs of a healthy constitution. He then, amidst roars of laughter, +pretended to catch a flea. He liked fleas, he said; a flea came in the +daylight and looked you in the face like a man as it bit you; but a bug +he hated. It crawled over your body in the dark and garroted you. Then +he went on to speak in a mock-heroic style of the rights of women. He +“spotted” some naughty ones present—an allusion received with laughter. +He loved them all, male or female, married or single, and advised all the +young men present to get married as soon as possible and then hang +themselves. Ballet dancing of the usual character followed, and I came +away. + +It is said a paper recently sent a special correspondent to describe a +London music-hall; the description was refused admission into the paper +on the ground of indecency, and I can well believe it. + +As to the profit made by the music-halls there can be no doubt. Take for +instance the London Pavilion. I find the following newspaper paragraph: +Sir Henry A. Hunt, C.B., the arbitrator in the case of the London +Pavilion Music Hall, has sent in his award. M. Loibl claimed £147,000 +for the freehold and goodwill, the building being required for the new +street from Piccadilly to Oxford Street. The award is £109,300. The +freehold cost M. Loibl £8,000, and his net profits in 1875 were £10,978; +in 1876, £12,083; and in 1877, £14,189. Let me give another +illustration. When the proprietor of Evans’ Supper Rooms was refused his +license, his loss was estimated at £10,000 per annum. It surely +evidently is more ready to pay liberally for the gratification of its +senses, than for the promotion of its virtues. + + + + +IV.—MORE ABOUT MUSIC-HALLS. + + +The journeyman engineer tells us one day as he was walking along with a +mate in the country, he spoke of the beauty of the surrounding scenery +and of the magnificent sight which met their eyes. “Oh, blow the sights +of the scenery,” said his companion, “the sight for me is a +public-house.” It is the same everywhere. I was once travelling in a +third-class carriage from Newry to Belfast, when I heard the most +atrocious exclamations from a party of young men seated at the other end, +all offering to break each other’s heads in the name of the Holy Father. +On my intimating that it was a pity young men should thus get into that +state to a respectable farmer by my side, his only reply was, “Sure, +what’s the good of a drop of drink if it don’t raise something?” Once +upon a time I spent a Sunday in a little village inn in North Wales. To +my disgust there stumbled into the little parlour a young man, dressed +respectably, who had evidently been heavily drinking. As he lay there +with his stertorous snore, all unconscious of the wonder and the beauty +of the opening day, it seemed to me that it was a sad misuse of the term +to say, as his friends would, that he had been in search of amusement. +As a reverend divine took his seat in a train the other day there +stumbled into it a couple of young fellows, one with his face very much +bruised and cut about—who soon went off to sleep—while his companion +explained to the minister that they had both of them been enjoying +themselves. In the more densely populated and poorer districts of the +metropolis there is an immense deal of this kind of enjoyment. + +To see the people enjoying themselves, I went the other night down the +Whitechapel and Commercial Road district. As I turned the corner of +Brick Lane I asked a tradesman of the better class if he could direct me +to a very celebrated music-hall in that neighbourhood. “It is over that +way,” said he with a strong expression of disgust. “It’s a regular sink +of iniquity,” he added. As I was not aware of that, I merely intimated +my regret that it was so largely patronised by working men, and that so +much money was thus wasted, which might be applied to a better purpose. +“Well, you see,” said my informant, “they don’t think of that—they know +there is the hospital for them when they are ill.” On my remarking that +I was going to Brick Lane prior to visiting the music-hall, he intimated +that I had better button up my coat, and when I said that when out on +such expeditions as I was then engaged in, I never carried a watch and +chain worth stealing, he remarked that if the people did not rob me, at +any rate they might knock me down. However, encouraged by his remarks +that the people were not so bad as they were, I went on my way. + +Apparently the improvement of which my informant spoke was of a very +superficial character. Coming from the Aldgate Station at the early hour +of six, I found every drinking shop crammed, including the gaudy +restaurant at the station, and descending to the filthiest gin-palace, +there were the men drinking, and if they were not drinking they were +loafing about in groups of by no means pleasant aspect. When at a later +hour I returned, the sight was still sadder, as hordes of wild young +girls, just emancipated from the workshop, were running up and down the +streets, shrieking and howling as if mad. As most of the shops were then +closed, the streets seemed almost entirely given over to these girls and +their male friends. In the quarter to which I bent my steps the naval +element was predominating, and there were hundreds of sailors cruising, +as it were, up and down, apparently utterly unconscious that their +dangers at sea were nothing to those on land. Men of all creeds and of +all nations were to be encountered in search of amusement, while hovered +around some of the most degraded women it is possible to imagine—women +whose bloated faces and forms were enough to frighten anyone, and to whom +poor Jack, in a state of liquor, is sure to become a prey. To the low +public-houses of this district dancing-rooms are attached, and in them, +as we may well suppose, vice flourishes and shows an unabashed front. I +must say it was with a feeling of relief that I found a harbour of refuge +in the music-hall. Compared with the streets, I must frankly confess it +was an exchange for the better. On the payment of a shilling I was +ushered by a most polite attendant into a very handsome hall, where I had +quite a nice little leather arm-chair to sit in, and where at my ease I +could listen to the actors and survey the house. The place was by no +means crowded, but there was a good deal of the rough element at the +back, to which, in the course of the evening’s amusement, the chairman +had more than once to appeal. From the arrangements made around me, it +was evident that there was the same provision which I have remarked +elsewhere for the drinking habits of the people. There was a side bar at +which the actors and actresses occasionally appeared on their way to or +from the stage, and affably drank with their friends and admirers. The +other day I happened to hear a thief’s confession, and what do you think +it was? That it was his mingling with the singers off the stage that had +led to his fall. He was evidently a smart, clever, young fellow, and had +thought it a sign of his being a lad of spirit to stand treat to such +people. Of course he could not afford it, and, of course, he had a fond +and foolish mother, who tried to screen him in his downward career. The +result was he embezzled his employer’s money, and, when that was +discovered, imprisonment and unavailing remorse were the result. To the +imagination of raw lads there is something wonderfully attractive in the +music-hall singer, as, with hat on one side and in costume of the loudest +character, and with face as bold as brass, he sings, “Slap, bang! here we +are again!” or takes off some popular theatrical performer or some +leading actor on a grander stage. On the night in question one singer +had the audacity to assume as much as possible the character of the +Premier of our day, not forgetting the long gray coat by which the Earl +of Beaconsfield is known in many quarters. Comic singing, relieved by +dancing, seemed to be the staple amusement of the place, and when one of +the female performers indecently elevated a leg, immense was the +applause. All the while the performances were going on, the waiters were +supplying their customers with drink, and one well-dressed +woman—evidently very respectable—managed a couple of glasses of grog in a +very short while. But mostly the people round me were quiet topers, who +smoked and drank with due decorum, and who seemed to use the place as a +kind of club, where they could sit comfortably for the night, and talk +and listen, and smoke or drink, at their pleasure. It is hardly +necessary to say that the majority of the audience were young men. The +attendance was not crowded. Perhaps in the east of London the pressure +of bad times is being felt. The mock Ethiopian element, next to the +dancing, was the feature of the evening’s amusements which elicited the +most applause. It is a curious thing that directly a man lampblacks his +face and wears a woollen wig, and talks broken English, he at once +becomes a popular favourite. + +A few nights after I found myself in quite another part of London—in a +music-hall that now calls itself a theatre of varieties. It was a very +expensive place, and fitted up in a very costly manner. You enter +through an avenue which is made to look almost Arcadian. Here and there +were little rustic nooks in which Romeo and Juliet would make love over a +cheerful glass. Flunkeys as smart almost as Lord Mayors’ footmen took +your orders. It was late when I put in an appearance, and it was useless +to try and get a seat. It was only in the neighbourhood of the +refreshment bar that I could get even standing room, and being a little +taller than some of the stunted half-grown lads around me, could look +over their heads to the gaudy and distant stage. I did not hear much of +the dialogue. Old Astley, who years before had lived in that +neighbourhood, and knew the art of catering for the people, used to +remark when the interest of the piece seemed to flag, “Cut the dialogue +and come to the ’osses,” and here the stage direction evidently was to +set the ballet-girls at work, and it seemed to me that the principal aim +of the piece was to show as many female arms and legs as was possible. I +am not of Dr. Johnson’s opinion that it is indecent for a woman to expose +herself on the stage, but I was, I own, shocked with the heroine of the +evening, whose too solid form in the lime-light—which was used, +apparently, to display all her beauties—was arrayed in a costume, which, +at a distance, appeared to be of Paradisaical simplicity, more fitted for +the dressing-room of the private mansion than for the public arena of the +stage. There was, I doubt not, animated dialogue, and the swells in the +stalls, I daresay, enjoyed it; but for my shilling I could see little, +and hear less; and weary of the perpetual flourish of female arms and +legs, I came away. What I did most distinctly hear were the orders at +the bar for pale ale and grog, and the cry of the waiter, as he pushed on +with his tray well filled, of “By your leave,” to the crowd on each +side—all of whom had, of course, a cigar or short pipe in their mouths, +and were evidently young men of the working class. That evening’s +amusement, I am sure, must have taken some two or three hundred pounds +out of their pockets. But I saw no one the worse for liquor, though the +public-houses all round were crowded with drunken men and women; for the +morrow was Sunday, and who can refuse the oppressed and over-taxed +working man his right to spend all his week’s wages on a Saturday night? + +One night last winter I was at a meeting held in the Mission Hall, Little +Wild Street, at which some three hundred thieves had been collected +together to supper. One of them, who had seen the evil of his ways, +said: “The greatest curse of my life was the music-halls. They have been +the means of my ruin;” and the way in which that speech was received by +his mates evidently testified to the fact that the experience of many was +of a similar character. I said to him afterwards that I knew the +music-hall to which he referred, and that I had calculated that on an +average each man spent there two shillings a night. “Oh sir,” was the +reply, “I spent a great deal more than that of a night.” If so, I may +assume that he spent as much as four shillings a night—and that, as the +place was his favourite haunt after office-hours, he was there every +night in the week, this would make an expenditure of one pound four +shillings—a sum, I imagine, quite as much as his wages as a poor clerk. +What wonder is it that the silly youth became a thief, especially when +the devil whispers in his ear that theft is easy and the chance of +detection small? The one damning fact which may be charged against all +music-halls is that their amusements are too high in price, and that +every device is set to work to make people spend more money than the cost +of the original admission. In the theatre you may sit—and most people do +sit all the evening—without spending a penny. In the music-hall a man +does not like to do that. He drinks for the sake of being sociable, or +because the waiter solicits him, or because he has drunk already and does +not like to leave off, or because he meets doubtful company at the bar, +or because the burden of every song is that he must be a “jolly pal” and +that he must enjoy a cheerful glass. I can remember when at one time the +admission fee included the cost of a pint of beer or some other fluid. +Now drink is an extra, and as the proprietor of the music-hall, to meet +the competition all round him, has to beautify his hall as much as +possible, and to get what he calls the best available talent, male or +female—whether in the shape of man or ass, or dog or elephant, or +monkey—he is of course put to a considerable extra expense; and that of +course he has to get out of the public the best way he can. No one loves +to work for nothing, and least of all the proprietor of a music-hall. + +Talking of “pals” and “a cheerful glass” reminds me of a scene which made +me sick at the time, and which I shall not speedily forget. On the night +of the Lord Mayor’s Show, I entered a music-hall in the north of +London—in a region supposed to be eminently pious and respectable, and +not far from where Hick’s Hall formerly stood. As I saw the thousands of +people pushing into the Agricultural Hall, to see the dreary spectacle of +an insane walking match, and saw another place of amusement being rapidly +filled up, I said to myself: “Well, there will be plenty of room for me +in the place to which I am bound;” and it was with misgiving that I paid +the highest price for admission—one shilling—to secure what I felt, under +the circumstances, I might have had at a cheaper rate. Alas! I had +reckoned without my host. The hour for commencing had not arrived, and +yet the place was full to overflowing. Mostly the audience consisted of +young men. As usual, there were a great many soldiers. It is wonderful +the number of soldiers at such places; and the spectator would be puzzled +to account for the ability of the private soldier thus to sport his +lovely person did not one remember that he is usually accompanied by a +female companion, generally a maid-of-all-work of the better class, who +is too happy to pay for his aristocratic amusements, as she deems them, +on condition that she accompanies him in the humble capacity of a friend. +Soldiers, I must do them justice to say, are not selfish, and scorn to +keep all the good things to themselves. As soon as they find a +neighbourhood where the servant “gal” is free with her wages, they +generally tell each other of the welcome fact, and then the Assyrian +comes down like the wolf on the fold. + +Well, to continue my story. On the night, and at the place already +referred to, they were a very jolly party—so far as beer and “baccy” and +crowded company and comic singing were concerned. They had a couple of +Brothers, who were supposed to be strong in the delineation of Irish and +German character, but as their knowledge of the language of the latter +seemed simply to be confined to the perpetually exclaiming “Yah, yah!” I +had misgivings as to their talents in that respect, which were justified +abundantly in the course of the evening. Dressed something in the style +of shoeblacks, and wearing wooden shoes, which made an awful noise when +they danced, the little one descries his long-lost elder brother, to whom +his replies are so smart and witty that the house was in a roar of +laughter, in which I did not join, as I had heard them twice already. + +After they had finished we had a disgustingly stout party, who was full +of praise of all conviviality, and who, while he sang, frisked about the +stage with wonderful vivacity and with as much grace as a bull in a +china-shop, or a bear dancing a hornpipe. As he sang, just behind me +there was all at once a terrible noise; the chairman had to call out +“Order,” the spectators began howling, “Turn him out;” the singer had to +stop, the roughs in the gallery began to scream and cheer, and the bars +were for a wonder deserted. In so dense a crowd it was so difficult to +see anything, that it was not at once that I discovered the cause of the +disorder; but presently I saw in one of the little pews, into which this +part of the house was divided (each pew having a small table in the +middle for the liquor) a couple of men quarrelling. All at once the +biggest of them—a very powerful fellow of the costermonger type—dealt his +opponent—a poor slim, weedy lad of the common shop-boy species—a +tremendous blow. The latter tried to retaliate, and struggled across the +table to hit his man, but he merely seemed to me to touch his whiskers, +while the other repeated his blow with tremendous effect. In vain the +sufferer tried to get out of the way; the place was too crowded, and with +a stream of blood flowing from his nose he fell, or would have fallen, to +the earth had not some of the bystanders dragged him a few yards from his +seat. Then as he lay by me drunk, or faint, or both, unable to sit up or +to move, with the blood pouring down his clothes and staining the carpet +all round, I saw, as the reader can well believe, a commentary on the +singer’s Bacchanalian song of a somewhat ironical character; but business +is business, and at the music-hall it will not do to harrow up the +feelings of the audience with such sad spectacles. Perfectly insensible, +the poor lad was carried out, while a constable was the means of inducing +his muscular and brutal-looking opponent to leave the hall. Order +restored, the stout party bounded on to the stage, and the hilarity of +the evening—with the exception of here and there a girl who, evidently +not being used to such places, was consequently frightened and pale and +faint for awhile—was as great as ever. The comic singer made no +reference to the unfortunate incident; all he could do was to say what he +had got by heart, and so he went on about the cheerful glass and the fun +of going home powerfully refreshed at an early hour in the morning, and +much did the audience enjoy his picture of the poor wife waiting for her +husband behind the door with a poker, assisting him upstairs with a pair +of tongs, and after she had got him sound asleep meanly helping herself +to what cash remained in his pocket. + +For my part, I candidly own I felt more inclined to sympathise with the +wife than with her husband; but the music-hall is bound to stand up for +drinking, for it is by drinking that it lives. If people cared for music +and the drama, they would go to the theatre; but that declines, and the +music-hall flourishes. Astley’s Theatre is a case in point. That has +been an old favourite with the public. At one time, I should imagine, +few places paid better—does not Ducrow sleep in one of the most +magnificent monuments in Kensal Green, and did he not make his money at +Astley’s?—but now there are two flourishing music-halls one on each side +of Astley’s, and as I write I see one of the proprietors, as a plea why +he should be given more time for the payment of a debt, admits that +sometimes they lose at Astley’s as much as forty pounds a week. If +Astley’s is to be made to pay, evidently the sooner it is turned into a +music-hall the better. + +Will the London School Boards raise the character of the future public? +is a question to be asked but not to be answered in our time. The real +fact is that amusements have a deteriorating effect on the character of +those who devote themselves to them, and become more frivolous as they +become more popular. This is the case, at any rate, as regards +music-halls. A gentleman the other day, as we were speaking of one of +the most successful of them, said how grieved he was on a visit to it +lately to see the generally lowered tone of entertainment. At one time +the attempt was made to give the people really good music, and there were +selections of operas of first-rate character. Now all that is done away +with, and there is nothing but silly comic singing of the poorest kind. + +In another respect also there has been a deterioration—that is, in the +increased sensationalism of the performance. A music-hall audience +requires extra stimulus—the appetite becomes palled, and if a leap of +fifty feet does not “fetch the public,” as Artemus Ward would say, why +then, the leap must be made a hundred; and really sometimes the +spectacles held up for the beery audience to admire are of the most +painful character. I have said that the doubtful female element is not +conspicuous in the music-hall—that is the case as regards those on the +outskirts of London, but the nearer you approach the West-End the less is +that the case; and there is more than one music-hall I could name which +is little better than a place of assignation and rendezvous for immoral +women, and where you may see them standing at the refreshment bars +soliciting a drink from all who pass. Such music-halls are amongst the +most successful of them all, and the proprietor reaps a golden harvest. + +I presume it is impossible to tell the number of our metropolitan +music-halls, or to give an idea of the numbers who frequent them, and of +the amount of money spent in them during the course of a single night. +Apparently they are all well supported, and are all doing well. If you +see a theatre well filled, that is no criterion of success. It may be, +for aught you know, well filled with paper, but the music-hall is a +paying audience, and it is cash, not paper, that is placed in the +proprietor’s hands. In the east of London I find that both as regards +the theatres and music-halls the proprietors have a dodge by means of +which they considerably increase their profits, and that is to open a +particular entrance a little before the time for admission, and to allow +people to enter on payment of a small extra fee. It was thus the other +night I made my way into a music-hall. I paid an extra twopence rather +than stand waiting half an hour outside in the crowd. Another thing I +also learned the other night that must somewhat detract from the +reputation of the theatre, considered in a temperance point of view, and +that is the drinking customs are not so entirely banished as at first +sight we may suppose. The thousands who fill up the Vic., and the +Pavilion in Whitechapel, perhaps do not drink quite as much as they would +had they spent the evening at a music-hall, but they do drink, +nevertheless, and generally are provided with a bottle of liquor which +they carry with them, with other refreshment, down into the pit, or up +where the gods live and lie reclined. + +If it is impossible to reckon the number of music-halls in London, it is +equally impossible to denote the public-houses with musical performances. +In Whitechapel the other night I discovered two free-and-easies on my way +to one of the music-halls of that district. They were, in reality, +music-halls of a less pretentious character, and yet they advertised +outside the grand attractions of a star company within. Prospects may be +cloudy, trade may be bad, and, as a slang writer remarks, things all +round may be unpromising, but the business of the music-hall fluctuates +very little. Enter at any time between nine and ten and you have little +chance of a seat, and none whatever of a good place. As to numbers it is +difficult to give an idea. Some of the officials are wisely chary in +this matter, and equally so on the subject of profits. The Foresters’ +Hall in Cambridge Heath Road advertises itself to hold four thousand +people, and that does not by any means strike me as one of the largest of +the music-halls. Last year the entire British public spent £140,000,000, +or eight shillings a week for each family, in drink, and the music-halls +help off the drink in an astonishing way. As I went into a music-hall +last autumn I saw a receipt for £51 as the profit for an entertainment +given there on behalf of the Princess Alice Fund, and if the attendance +was a little greater, and the profit a little larger than usual, still a +fair deduction from £51 for bad nights and slack times will make a pretty +handsome total at the end of the year after all. Now and then the +music-hall does a little bit of philanthropy in another way, which is +sure to be made the most of in the papers. For instance, last year Mr. +Fort, of the Foresters’ Music Hall, invited some of the paupers from a +neighbouring workhouse to spend the evening with him. I daresay he had a +good many old customers among the lot, whereupon someone writes in _Fun_ +as follows: “The Bethnal Green Guardians showed themselves superior to +the Bath Guardians the other day, and in response to the offer of Mr. +Fort, proprietor of the Foresters’ Music-hall, rescinded the resolution +prohibiting the paupers from partaking of any amusement other than that +afforded within the workhouse walls. So the inmates of the union had a +day out, and, we trust, forgot for awhile their sorrows and troubles. It +is whispered that, in addition to pleasing the eye and the ear, the +promoter of the entertainment presented each of his visitors with a +little drop of something of an equally Fort-ified character.” I may add +that the Foresters’ Music-hall claims to be a celebrated popular family +resort, and that evening I was there the performance was one to which a +family might be invited. Of course the family must have a turn for +drink. They cannot go there without drinking. There is the public-house +entrance to suggest drink, the bar at the end of the saloon to encourage +it, and the waiters are there expressly to hand it round, and a +good-natured man of course does not like to see waiters standing idle, +and accordingly gives his orders; and besides, it is an axiom in +political economy that the supply creates the demand. + +Here are some of the verses I have heard sung with immense applause: + + The spiritualists only can work by night, + They keep it dark; + For their full-bodied spirits cannot stand the light, + So they keep it dark; + They profess to call _spirits_, but I call for _rum_ + And _brandy_ or _gin_ as the best medi_um_ + For raising the spirits whenever I’m glum; + But keep it dark. + +The utter silliness of many of the songs is shown by the following, “sung +with immense success,” as I read in the programme, by Herbert Campbell: + + I’ve read of little Jack Horner, + I’ve read of Jack and Jill, + And old Mother Hubbard, + Who went to the cupboard + To give her poor dog a pill; + But the best is Cowardy Custard, + Who came to awful grief + Through eating a plate of mustard + Without any plate of beef. + + _Chorus_. + + Cowardy Cowardy Custard, oh dear me, + Swallowed his father’s mustard, oh dear me— + He swallowed the pot, and he collared it hot; + For, much to his disgust, + The mustard swelled, Cowardy yelled, + Then Cowardy Cowardy bust. + +This is supposed, I presume, to be a good song. What are we to think of +the people who call it so? It is difficult to imagine the depth of +imbecility thus reached on the part of singer and hearers, and is a fine +illustration of the influence of beer and “baccy” as regards softening +the brain. The music-hall singer degrades his audience. Even when he +sings of passing events he panders as much as possible to the passions +and prejudices of the mob. His words are redolent of claptrap and fury, +and are a mischievous element in the formation of public opinion. Heroes +and patriots are not made in music-halls. But rogues and drunkards and +vagabonds—and lazy, listless lives, destitute of all moral aim. There +are respectable people who go to music-halls—women as well as men—but +they get little good there. Indeed, it would be a miracle if they did. + +But the great fact is that the music-hall makes young men indulge in +expensive habits—get into bad company, and commence a career which ends +in the jail. Amusement has not necessarily a bad effect, or else it +would be a poor look-out for all. It is as much our duty to be merry as +it is to be wise. It is the drinking at these places that does the +mischief. It is that that leads to a low tone of entertainment, and +deadens the conscience of the young man who thinks he is enjoying life, +and makes the working man forget how the money he squanders away would +make his home brighter, and his wife and children happier, and would form +a nice fund to be drawn on when necessary on a rainy day. The great +curse of the age is extravagant and luxurious living, always accompanied +with a low tone of public intelligence and morality and thought. In the +present state of society we see that realised in the men and women who +crowd our music-halls, and revel in the songs the most improper, and in +the dances the most indelicate. + +As I write, another illustration of the pernicious influence of +music-halls appears in the newspapers. At the Middlesex Sessions, John +B. Clarke surrendered to his bail on an indictment charging him with +attempting to wound his wife, and with having wounded George Marshall, +police constable, in the execution of his duty. When Marshall was on +duty in Jubilee Street on the night of November 28th, he heard loud cries +of “Murder” and ‘“Police,” and went to the prisoner’s house. He found +the prisoner and his wife struggling in the passage, and the wife, seeing +him, cried out, “Policeman, he has a knife and has threatened to cut my +throat.” The police-constable closed with the prisoner and endeavoured +to wrest the knife from him, when the prisoner made two stabs at his wife +which fortunately missed her, and another stab which cut the hand of +Marshall, who succeeded in wresting the knife from the prisoner, and took +him to the station. In cross-examination it was elicited that prisoner’s +wife had gone to a music-hall; that her husband, returning home, found +her with two or three young men and women sitting together in his +parlour; that one of the young men kissed her, and that the prisoner, +seeing this, became mad with jealousy, and seized the first thing that +came to his hand. A gentleman, in whose employment the prisoner was, +gave him an exceptionally high character for more than eighteen years, +and expressed his perfect willingness to have him back into his service +and to become security for his good behaviour. The jury convicted the +prisoner of causing actual bodily harm, strongly recommending him to +mercy, and expressing their belief that he had no intention to wound the +policeman. Mr. Prentice said this was a peculiarly sad and painful case. +To wound or even obstruct a policeman in the execution of his duty was a +serious offence; but looking at all the circumstances of the case, the +finding of the jury, and their recommendation to mercy, he sentenced him +to one month’s hard labour, and accepted his employer’s surety that he +would keep the peace for the next three months. The grand jury commended +Marshall for his conduct in the case. + +Another thing also may be said. The other evening I was dining with a +lawyer with a large police practice, in what may be called, and what +really is, a suburb of London. My friend is what may be described as a +man of the world, and of course is anything but a fanatic in the cause of +temperance. I spoke of a music-hall in his immediate neighbourhood, and +said I intended dropping in after dinner. “Well,” he said, “the worst of +the place is that if we ever have a case of embezzlement on the part of +some shop-boy or porter, it is always to be traced to that music-hall. A +lad goes there, is led into expenses beyond his means, thinks it manly to +drink and to treat flash women, and one fine morning it is discovered +that he has been robbing the till, and is ruined for life.” + +With these words of an experienced observer, I conclude. + + + + +V.—SUNDAYS WITH THE PEOPLE. + + +It is said—and indeed it has been said so often that I feel ashamed of +saying it—that one half the world does not know how the other half lives. +I am sure that whether that is true or not, few of my City readers have +any idea of what goes on in the City while they are sitting comfortably +at home, or are sitting equally comfortably at church or chapel (for of +course the denunciations of the preacher when he speaks of the depravity +of the age do not refer to them). Suppose we take a stroll in the +eastern part of the City, where the dirt is greatest, the population most +intense, and the poverty most dire. We need not rise very early. On a +Sunday morning we are all of us a little later at breakfast than on +ordinary occasions. We sit longer over our welcome meal—our toilette is +a little more elaborate—so that we are in the City this particular Sunday +about half-past nine—a later hour than most of the City-men patronise on +the week-day. In the leading thoroughfares shops are shut and there are +few people about, and in the City, especially these dark winter mornings, +when the golden gleam of sunshine gilds the raw and heavy fog which in +the City heralds the approach of day, very few signs of life are visible, +very few omnibuses are to be seen, and even the cabs don’t seem to care +whether you require their services or whether you let them alone. Here +and there a brisk young man or a spruce maiden may be seen hastening to +teach at some Sunday school; otherwise respectability is either asleep or +away. + +As we pass along, the first thing that strikes the stranger is a dense +unsavoury mob to be met outside certain buildings. We shall see one such +assemblage in Bell Alley, Goswell Street; we shall see another in +Artillery Street; there will be another at the Cow Cross Mission Hall, +and another in Whitecross Street, and another in a wretched little hovel, +you can scarcely call it a building, in Thaull Street. Just outside the +City, at the Memorial Hall, Bethnal Green, and at the Rev. W. Tyler’s +Ragged Church in King Edward Street, there will be similar crowds. Let +us look at them. It is not well to go too near, for they are unsavoury +even on these cold frosty mornings. Did you ever see such wretched, +helpless, dirty, ragged, seedy, forlorn men and women in all your life? +I think not. Occasionally on a week-day we see a beggar, shirtless and +unwashed and unkempt, shivering in the street, but here in these mobs we +see nothing else. They have tickets for free breakfasts provided for +them under the care of Mr. J. J. Jones and the Homerton Mission. How +they crowd around the doors, waiting for admission; how sad and +disconsolate those who have not tickets look as they turn away! What a +feast of fat things, you say, there must be inside. My dear sir, it is +nothing of the kind. All that is provided for them is a small loaf of +bread, with the smallest modicum of butter, and a pint of cocoa. Not +much of a breakfast that to you or me, who have two or three good meals a +day, but a veritable godsend to the half-starved and wretched souls we +see outside. Let us follow them inside. The tables and the long forms +on which they are seated are of the rudest kind. The room, as a rule, is +anything but attractive, nor is the atmosphere very refreshing. A City +missionary or an agent of the Christian community, or a devoted Christian +woman or a young man, whose heart is in the work—is distributing the +materials of the feast, which are greedily seized and ravenously +devoured. Let us look at them now they have taken their hats off. What +uncombed heads; what dirty faces; what scant and threadbare garments! +There are women too, and they seem to have fallen lower than the men. +They look as if they had not been to bed for months; as if all pride of +personal appearance had long since vanished; as if they had come out of a +pigstye. + +Well, the world is a hard one for such as they, and no one can grudge +them the cheap meal which Christian charity provides. It seems a mockery +to offer these waifs and strays of the streets and alleys and +disreputable slums of the City a Gospel address till something has been +done to assuage the pangs of hunger, and to arouse in them the dormant +and better feelings of their nature. It is thus these mission-halls are +enabled to do a little good, to go down to the very depths, as it were, +in the endeavour to reform a wasted life, and to save a human soul. As +you look at these men and women you shudder. Most of them are in what +may be called the prime of life; able-bodied, ripe for mischief, fearing +not God, regarding not man. It must do them good to get them together at +these Sunday morning breakfasts, where they may realise that Christian +love which makes men and women in the middle and upper classes of society +have compassion on such as they. + +Getting out into the open air, or rather into the open street, I heard a +band of singers advance. It is a procession, but not a very dangerous +one. The leader walks with his back to us, an act rarely exercised out +of royal circles. It is thus he guides the vocalists before him, who go +walking arm-in-arm singing with all their might; while at the rear a +pleasant-looking man follows, giving papers to the people. I take one, +and learn that this is Mr. Booth’s Allelujah Band, and that a seat is +kindly offered me in his tabernacle, where I can hear the Gospel. I +don’t accept the invitation; I can hear the Gospel without going to +Whitechapel, and Mr. Booth’s extravagances are not to my taste. +Apparently this Sunday morning the people do not respond to the +invitation. It is evident that in this part of the City the novelty of +the thing has worn off. + +I scarce know whether I am in the City or not. I plunge into a mass of +streets and courts leading from Artillery Street to King Edward Street at +one end, and Bethnal Green at the other. Here is a market in which a +brisk provision trade is carried on, and men and women are purchasing all +the materials of a Sunday dinner. Outside Rag-fair a trade similar to +that which prevails there seems also to be carried on. I see no +policemen about, and the people apparently do just as they like; and the +filth and garbage left lingering in some of the narrow streets are +anything but pleasant. As a I rule, I observe the policemen only +patronise the leading thoroughfares, and then it seems to me they act in +a somewhat arbitrary manner. For instance, opposite the Broad Street +Terminus a lad is cleaning a working man’s boots. While he is in the +middle of the operation the policeman comes and compels him to march off. +I move on a dozen steps, and there, up Broad Street—just as you enter the +Bishopsgate Station of the Metropolitan Railway—is another lad engaged in +the same work of shoe or boot cleaning. Him the policeman leaves alone. +I wonder why. Justice is painted blind, and perhaps the policeman is +occasionally ditto. In Bishopsgate Street itself the crowd was large of +idle boys and men, who seemed to have nothing particular to do, and did +not appear to care much about doing that. They took no note of the +Sabbath bells which called them to worship. To them the Sunday morning +was simply a waste of time. They had turned out of their homes and +lodgings, and were simply walking up and down the street till it was time +to open the public-house. In that street, as the reader may be aware, +there is the Great Central Hall, and as its doors were open, I went in. +The audience was very scanty, and apparently temperance does not find +more favour with the British working man than the Gospel. Mr. Ling was +in the chair. There was now and then a hymn sung or a temperance melody, +and now and then a speech. Indeed, the speeches were almost as numerous +as the hearers. It seems the society keeps a missionary at work in that +part of the City, and he had much to say of the cases of reformation +going on under his care. The best speech I heard was that of a working +builder, who said for years he had been in the habit of spending eight +shillings a week in the drink, and how much better off he was now that he +kept the money in his pocket. I wished the man had more of his class to +hear him. Of course he rambled a little and finished off with an attack +on the bishops, which the chairman (Mr. Ling) very properly did not allow +to pass unchallenged, as he quoted Bishop Temple as a teetotaler, and +referred to the hearty way in which many of the clergy of the Church of +England supported the temperance cause. + +I hasten to other scenes. I next find myself in Sclater Street, and here +up and down surges a black mob, sufficient at any rate, were it so +disposed, to fill St. Paul’s Cathedral. This mob is composed entirely of +working men—men who are amused with anything, and hurry in swarms to a +hatter’s shop, who simply throws out among them pink and yellow cards, +indicating the extraordinary excellence and unparalleled cheapness of the +wares to be sold within. + +Foreigners say Sunday is a dull day; that then there is no business doing +in London; and that everyone is very sad on that day. In Sclater Street +they would soon find out their mistake. There, it is evident, little of +Sunday quiet and Sunday dulness exists. On each side of me are shops +with birds; and if there is not a brisk trade going on, it is certainly +not the fault of the tradesmen. We have just had what the bird-catchers +call the November flight of linnets, and in Sclater Street the market +overflows with them. The London and suburban bird-catchers, who are not +to be put down by Act of Parliament, have had a fine time of it this +year. The principal part of the linnets are bred on the wild gorse +lands, and it is the wild weather such as we have had of late that drives +them into the nets of the suburban fowler, who this year has been so +lucky as to take five dozen of them at one pull of the clap-net. +Goldfinches also are abundant, in consequence of the provision of the +Wild Birds Preservation Act. On Sunday a bird-dealer offers me them at +threepence each, or four for a shilling. It is sad to see the poor +little things shut up in their bits of cages in the dirty shops of +Sclater Street. The proprietor with his unwashed hands takes them out +one by one and holds them out in vain. The British workman crowds round +and admires, but he does not buy, as he is keeping his money in his +pocket till 1 P.M., when the “public” opens its congenial doors, and his +unnatural thirst is slaked. It is really shocking, this display of these +beautiful little songsters. What crime have they committed that they +should be imprisoned in the dirt and bad air and uncongenial fog of +Sclater Street? What are the uses of the Wild Birds Preservation Act if +the only result is the crowding the shops of the bird-dealers in Sclater +Street? I felt indeed indignant at the sight thus permitted, and at the +trade thus carried on. Cocks and hens, ducks and rabbits, are proper +subjects of sale, I admit, though I see no particular reason why, when +other shops are closed, shops for the sale of them are permitted to +remain open; but blackbirds, linnets, thrushes, goldfinches, +bullfinches—the ornaments of the country, the cheerful choristers of the +garden and the grove—deserve kinder treatment at our hands, even if the +result be that Sclater Street does less business and is less of an +attractive lounge to the British operative on a Sabbath morn. Away from +Sclater Street and Bishopsgate Street the crowd thins, and the ordinary +lifeless appearance of the Sunday in London is visible everywhere. Here +and there a gray-headed old gentleman or an elderly female may be seen +peeping out of a first-floor window into the sad and solitary street, but +the younger branches of the family are away. Now and then you catch a +crowd of workmen who are much given to patronise the showy van which the +proprietor of some invaluable preparation of sarsaparilla utilises for +the sale of his specific for purifying the blood and keeping off all the +ills to which flesh is heir. Such shops as are open for the sale of +cheap confectionery I see also are well patronised, and in some quarters +evidently an attempt made to dispose of ginger-beer. On the cold frosty +morning the hot-chestnut trade appears also to be in demand, though I +question whether all who crowd round the vendors of such articles are +_bonâ-fide_ buyers; rather, it seems to me, that under the pretence of +being such they are taking a mean advantage of the little particle of +warmth thrown out by the charcoal fire used for the purpose of roasting +chestnuts. Well, I can’t blame them; it is cold work dawdling in the +streets, and if I were a British workman I fancy I should find a little +more interest in church than in the idle walk and talk of some, or in the +habit others have of standing stock still till The Pig and Whistle or the +Blue Lion open their doors. It is well to be free and independent and +your own master, but that is no reason why all the Sunday morning should +be spent in loafing about the streets. + +But what about the many? Well, the public-houses are open, and it is +there the British workman feels himself but too much at home. And then +there is the Hall of Science, in Old Street, which is generally crowded +by an audience who pay gladly for admission to hear Mr. Bradlaugh, who is +a very able man, lecture, in a style which would shock many good people +if they were to hear him. I must candidly admit that in that style he is +far outdone by Mrs. Besant, who takes the Bible to pieces, and turns it +inside out, and holds up to ridicule all its heroes and prophets, and +kings and apostles, and Christ himself, with a zest which seems perfectly +astonishing when we remember how much Christianity has done for the +elevation of the people in general and woman in particular. Mrs. Besant +is a very clever woman, and she means well I daresay, still it is not +pleasant to see the Hall of Science so well filled as it is on a Sunday +night. + +The Hall of Science in the Old Street Road is not an attractive place +outside, and internally it is less of a hall and more of a barn than any +public building with which I chance to be familiar. And yet, Sunday +night after Sunday night, it is well filled, though the admission for +each person is from threepence to a shilling, and there is no attempt by +music or ritual to attract the sentimental or the weak. The lectures +delivered are long and argumentative, and it is worth the study, +especially of the Christian minister who complains that he cannot get at +the working man, how it is that the people prefer to pay money to hear +the lectures at Old Street, while he offers them the Gospel without money +and without price and often with the additional attraction of a free tea. +With that view I went to hear Mrs. Besant one Sunday night. I know +little of Mrs. Besant, save that she has been made the subject of a +prosecution which, whatever be its results, whether of fine or +imprisonment to herself or of gain to her prosecutors, is one deeply to +be deplored. If a clergyman of the Established Church of England +established or attempted to establish the fact that mankind has a +tendency to increase beyond the means of existence, a woman, on behalf of +the sex that has the most to suffer from the misery of overpopulation, +has a right in the interests of humanity to call attention to the +subject. In a very old-fashioned couplet it has been remarked of woman— + + That if she will, she will, you may depend on’t; + And if she won’t, she won’t, and there’s an end on’t. + +To that class of female Mrs. Besant emphatically belongs. She is one of +those rare ones who will say what she thinks. There is a great deal of +firmness in her face. Such a woman always goes her own way. It was a +pleasant change from the strong meat of the Hall of Science—the withering +scorn and contempt there poured on all that the best men in the world +have held to be best—to the mild excitement of a Shakespearian reading in +a public-house. Could there be a fitter teacher for the people who do +not go to church, and, let me add, also for those who do? There could be +no negative reply to such a question, and surely if Shakespeare is quoted +in the pulpit on a Sunday morning, the people may hear him read on a +Sunday evening. + +“Sunday evening readings for the people!” Only think of that! What a +gain from the tap-room and the bar-parlour. Such was the announcement +that met my eye the other night in a street not a hundred miles from +King’s Cross railway station. Mr. So-and-So, the bill proceeded to +state, had the pleasure to inform his friends that, with a view to oblige +the public, he had secured the services of a celebrated dramatic reader, +who would on every Sunday evening read or recite passages from +Shakespeare, Thackeray, Dickens, Hood, Thornbury, Sketchley, etc. +Further, the bill stated that these readings would commence at a +quarter-past seven, and terminate at a quarter-past ten. Could I resist +such an intellectual treat? Could I deny myself such an exquisite +gratification? Forgive me, indulgent reader, if for once I made up my +mind I could not. The difficulty was where to find the place, for, in my +delight at finding a publican so public-spirited—so ready to compete with +the attractions of St. George’s Hall—I had unfortunately failed to make a +note of the house thus kindly thrown open to an intelligent public. The +difficulty was greater than would at first sight appear, for on Sunday +night shops are mostly closed, and there are few people in a position to +answer anxious inquirers. Great gin-palaces were flaring away in all +their glory, and doing a roaring trade at the time when church-bells were +ringing for evening service, and decent people were hastening to enter +the sanctuary, and for awhile to forget earth with its care and sin. In +vain I timidly entered and put the query to the customers at the crowded +bar, to potman over the counter, to landlord, exceptionally brilliant in +the splendour of his Sunday clothes. They knew nothing of the benevolent +individual whose whereabouts I sought; and evidently had a poor opinion +of me for seeking his address. Sunday evening readings for the people! +what cared they for them? Why could I not stand soaking like the others +at their bar, and not trouble my head about readings from Shakespeare and +Dickens? Such evidently was the train of thought suggested by my +questions. Just over the way was a police-station. Of course the police +would know; it was their duty to know what went on in all the +public-houses of the district. I entered, and found three policemen in +the charge of a superior officer. I put my question to him, and then to +them all. Alas! they knew as little of the matter as myself; indeed, +they knew less, for they had never heard of such a place, and seemed +almost inclined to “run me in” for venturing to suppose they had. What +wonderful fellows are our police! I say so because all our +penny-a-liners say so; but my opinion is, after all, that they can see +round a corner or through a brick wall just as well as myself or any +other man, and no more. Clearly this was a case in point, for the +public-house I was seeking was hardly a stone’s-throw off, and I was +directed to it by an intelligent greengrocer, who was standing at his +shop-door and improving his mind by the study of that fearless champion +of the wrongs of the oppressed and trodden-down British working man, +_Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper_. It was he who put me on the right scent—not +that he was exactly certain—but he indicated the house at which such +proceedings were likely to take place, and as he was right in his +conjecture, I take this opportunity of publicly returning him my thanks. +Had it not been for him I should have had no Shakespeare, no Thackeray, +no Hood, no Dickens, no feast of reason and flow of soul that Sunday +night. As it was, it turned out as I expected, and I had very little of +either to reward my painful search. As I have said, the nominal hour at +which proceedings commenced was a quarter-past seven; in reality, it was +not till nearly half-past eight that the celebrated dramatic reader +favoured us with a specimen of his powers. It was true he was in the +house, but he was down in the bar with a select circle, indulging in the +luxuries generally to be found in such places. In the meantime I took +stock leisurely of the room upstairs in which we assembled, and of its +occupants. At that early hour the latter were not numerous. A little +foreigner with his wife was seated by the fire, and him she led off +before the dramatic readings commenced. Reasons, which a sense of +delicacy forbids my mentioning, suggested the wisdom and the prudence of +an early retirement from a scene rather dull—at any rate, quite the +reverse of gay and festive. As to the rest of us, I can’t say that we +were a particularly lively lot. A stern regard to truth compels me +reluctantly to remark that we were unprepossessing looking rather than +otherwise. The majority I of us there were lads with billycock hats and +short pipes, who talked little to each other, but smoked and drank beer +in solemn silence. The cheerfulest personage in the room was the potboy, +who, as he stalked about with his apron on and his shirt-sleeves tucked +up, seemed to be quite at home with his customers. Some of the lads had +their sweethearts with them; at any rate I presume they were such from +the retiring way in which they sat—she, after the manner of such young +people in a large room, chiefly occupied in counting the ten fingers of +her red and ungloved hands, while her male admirer sat smoking his short +pipe and spitting on the sanded floor in a way more suggestive of perfect +freedom than of grace. I could see but two decent-looking girls in the +room, which, by the time the entertainment was over, contained as many as +sixty or seventy. Evidently the class of customers expected was a low +one, greengrocers’ and costermongers’ boys apparently, and such like. +The tables were of the commonest order, and we had no chairs, nothing but +long forms, to sit on. In the middle by the wall was a small platform, +carpeted; on this platform was a chair and table, and it was there the +hero of the evening seated himself, and it was from thence that at +intervals he declaimed. As to the entertainment, if such it may be +called, the less said about it the better. A more fifth-rate, +broken-down, ranting old hack I think I never heard. Even now it puzzles +me to think how the landlord could have ever had the impudence to attach +the term “celebrated” to his name. It seemed as if the reader had an +impediment in his speech, so laughable and grotesque was his enunciation, +which, however, never failed to bring down an applause in the way of raps +on the tables which caused the glasses to jingle—to the manifest danger +of spilling their contents. We had a recitation about Robert Bruce, and +other well-known readings; then he bellowed and tossed his arms about and +screamed! How dull were his comic passages! How comic was his pathos! +Surely never was good poetry more mangled in its delivery before. I can +stand a good deal—I am bound to stand a good deal, for in the course of a +year I have to listen to as much bad oratory as most; but at last I could +stand it no longer, and was compelled to beat a precipitate retreat, +feeling that I had over-estimated the public spirit of the landlord and +his desire to provide intellectual amusement for his friends—feeling that +these readings for the people are nothing better than an excuse for +getting boys and girls to sit smoking and drinking, wasting their time +and injuring their constitutions, on a night that should be sacred to +better things, in the tainted atmosphere of a public-house. + + + + +VI.—THE LOW LODGING-HOUSE. + + +Is chiefly to be found in Whitechapel, in Westminster, and in Drury Lane. +It is in such places the majority of our working men live, especially +when they are out of work or given to drink; and the drinking that goes +on in these places is often truly frightful, especially where the sexes +are mixed, and married people, or men and women supposed to be such, +abound. In some of these lodging-houses as many as two or three hundred +people live; and if anything can keep a man down in the world, and render +him hopeless as to the future, it is the society and the general tone of +such places. Yet in them are to be met women who were expected to shine +in society—students from the universities—ministers of the Gospel—all +herding in these filthy dens like so many swine. It is rarely a man +rises from the low surroundings of a low lodging-house. He must be a +very strong man if he does. Such a place as a Workman’s City has no +charms for the class of whom I write. Some of them would not care to +live there. It is no attraction to them that there is no public-house on +the estate, that the houses are clean, that the people are orderly, that +the air is pure and bracing. They have no taste or capacity for the +enjoyment of that kind of life. They have lived in slums, they have been +accustomed to filth, they have no objection to overcrowding, they must +have a public-house next door. This is why they live in St. Giles’s or +in Whitechapel, where the sight of their numbers is appalling, or why +they crowd into such low neighbourhoods as abound in Drury Lane. Drury +Lane is not at all times handy for their work. On the contrary, some of +its inhabitants come a long way. One Saturday night I met a man there +who told me he worked at Aldershot. Of course to many it is convenient. +It is near Covent Garden, where many go to work as early as 4 A.M.; and +it is close to the Strand, where its juvenile population earn their daily +food. Ten to one the boy who offers you “the Hevening Hecho,” the lass +who would fain sell you cigar-lights and flowers, the woman who thrusts +the opera programme into your carriage as you drive down Bow Street, the +questionable gentleman who, if chance occurs, eases you of your +pocket-handkerchief or your purse, the poor girl who, in tawdry finery, +walks her weary way backwards and forwards in the Strand, whether the +weather be wet or dry, long after her virtuous sisters are asleep—all +hail from Drury Lane. It has ever been a spot to be shunned. Upwards of +a hundred years ago, Gay wrote in his “Trivia”— + + Oh, may thy virtue guard thee through the roads + Of Drury’s mazy courts and dark abodes. + +It is not of Drury Lane itself, but of its mazy courts that I write. +Drury Lane is a shabby but industrious street. It is inhabited chiefly +by tradespeople, who, like all of us, have to work hard for their living; +but at the back of Drury Lane—on the left as you come from New Oxford +Street—there run courts and streets as densely inhabited as any of the +most crowded and filthy parts of the metropolis, and compared with which +Drury Lane is respectability itself. A few days since I wanted to hear +Happy William in a fine new chapel they have got in Little Wild Street. +As I went my way, past rag-shops and cow-houses, I found myself in an +exclusively Irish population, some of whom were kneeling and crossing +themselves at the old Roman Catholic chapel close by, but the larger +number of whom were drinking at one or other of the public-houses of the +district. At the newspaper-shop at the corner, the only bills I saw were +those of _The Flag of Ireland_, or _The Irishman_, or _The Universe_. In +about half an hour there were three fights, one of them between women, +which was watched with breathless interest by a swarming crowd, and which +ended in one of the combatants, a yellow-haired female, being led to the +neighbouring hospital. On his native heather an Irishman cares little +about cleanliness. As I have seen his rude hut, in which the pigs and +potatoes and the children are mixed up in inextricable confusion, I have +felt how pressing is the question in Ireland, not of Home Rule, but of +Home Reform. I admit his children are fat and numerous, but it is +because they live on the hill-side, where no pestilent breath from the +city ever comes. + +In the neighbourhood of Drury Lane it is different; there is no fresh air +there, and the only flowers one sees are those bought at Covent Garden. +Everywhere on a summer night (she “has no smile of light” in Drury Lane), +you are surrounded by men, women, and children, so that you can scarce +pick your way. In Parker Street and Charles Street, and such-like +places, the houses seem as if they never had been cleaned since they were +built, yet each house is full of people—the number of families is +according to the number of rooms. I should say four-and-sixpence a week +is the average rent for these tumble-down and truly repulsive apartments. +Children play in the middle of the street, amidst the dirt and refuse; +costermongers, who are the capitalists of the district, live here with +their donkeys; across the courts is hung the family linen to dry. You +sicken at every step. Men stand leaning gloomily against the sides of +the houses; women, with unlovely faces, glare at you sullenly as you pass +by. + +The City Missionary is, perhaps, the only one who comes here with a +friendly word, and a drop of comfort and hope for all. Of course the +inhabitants are as little indoors as possible. It may be that the +streets are dull and dirty, but the interiors are worse. Only think of a +family, with grown-up sons and daughters, all living and sleeping in one +room! The conditions of the place are as bad morally as they are +physically. + +It is but natural that the people drink more than they eat, that the +women soon grow old and haggard, and that the little babes, stupefied +with gin and beer, die off, happily, almost as fast as they are born. +Here you see men and women so foul and scarred and degraded that it is +mockery to say that they were made in the image of the Maker, and that +the inspiration of the Almighty gave them understanding; and you ask is +this a civilised land, and are we a Christian people? + +No wonder that from such haunts the girl gladly rushes to put on the +harlot’s livery of shame, and comes here after her short career of gaiety +to die of disease and gin. In some of the streets are forty or fifty +lodging-houses for women or men, as the case may be. In some of these +lodging-houses there are men who make their thirty shillings or two +pounds a week. In others are the broken-down mendicants who live on +soup-kitchens and begging. You can see no greater wretchedness in the +human form than what you see here. And, as some of these lodging-houses +will hold ninety people, you may get some idea of their number. When I +say that the sitting-room is common to all, that it has always a roaring +fire, and that all day, and almost all night long, each lodger is cooking +his victuals, you can get a fair idea of the intolerable atmosphere, in +spite of the door being ever open. It seemed to me that a large number +of the people could live in better apartments if they were so disposed, +and if their only enjoyment was not a public-house debauch. The keepers +of these houses seemed very fair-spoken men. + +I met with only one rebuff, and that was at a model house in Charles +Street. As I airily tapped at the window, and asked the old woman if I +could have a bed, at first she was civil enough, but when I ventured to +question her a bit she angrily took herself off, remarking that she did +not know who I was, and that she was not going to let a stranger get +information out of her. + +As to myself, I can only say that I had rather lodge in any gaol than in +the slums of Drury Lane. The sight of sights in this district is that of +the public-houses and the crowds who fill them. On Saturday every bar +was crammed; at some you could not get in at the door. The women were as +numerous as the men; in the daytime they are far more so; and as almost +every woman has a child in her arms, and another or two tugging at her +gown, and as they are all formed into gossiping knots, one can imagine +the noise of such places. + +D.D.—City readers will know whom I refer to—has opened a branch +establishment in Drury Lane, and his place was the only one that was not +crowded. I can easily understand the reason—one of the regulations of +D.D.’s establishment is that no intoxicated person should be served. I +have reason to conclude, from a conversation I had some time ago with one +of D.D.’s barmen, that the rule is not very strictly enforced; but if it +were carried out at all by the other publicans in Drury Lane I am sure +there would be a great falling off of business. Almost every woman had a +basket; in that basket was a bottle, which, in the course of the evening, +was filled with gin for private consumption; and it was quite appalling +to see the number of little pale-faced ragged girls who came with similar +bottles on a similar errand. When the liquor takes effect, the women are +the most troublesome, and use the worst language. + +On my remarking to a policeman that the neighbourhood was, comparatively +speaking, quiet, he said there had been three or four rows already, and +pointed to a pool of blood as confirmation of his statement. The men +seemed all more or less stupidly drunk, and stood up one against another +like a certain Scotch regiment, of which the officer, when complimented +on their sobriety, remarked that they resembled a pack of cards—if one +falls, down go all the rest. + +Late hours are the fashion in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane. It is +never before two on a Sunday morning that there is quiet there. Death, +says Horace, strikes with equal foot the home of the poor and the palace +of the prince. This is not true as regards low lodging-houses. Even in +Bethnal Green the Sanitary Commission found that the mean age at death +among the families of the gentry, professionalists, and richer classes of +that part of Loudon was forty-four, whilst that of the families of the +artisan class was about twenty-two. + +Everyone—for surely everyone has read Mr. Plimsoll’s appeal on behalf of +the poor sailors—must remember the description of his experiences in a +lodging-house of the better sort, established by the efforts of Lord +Shaftesbury in Fetter Lane and Hatton Garden. “It is astonishing,” says +Mr. Plimsoll, “how little you can live on when you divest yourselves of +all fancied needs. I had plenty of good wheat bread to eat all the week, +and the half of a herring for a relish (less will do, if you can’t afford +half, for it is a splendid fish), and good coffee to drink, and I know +how much—or, rather how little—roast shoulder of mutton you can get for +twopence for your Sunday’s dinner.” + +I propose to write of other lodging-houses—houses of a lower character, +and filled, I imagine, with men of a lower class. Mr. Plimsoll speaks in +tones of admiration of the honest hard-working men whom he met in his +lodging-house. They were certainly gifted with manly virtues, and +deserved all his praise. In answer to the question, What did I see +there? he replies: + +“I found the workmen considerate for each other. I found that they would +go out (those who were out of employment) day after day, and patiently +trudge miles and miles seeking employment, returning night after night +unsuccessful and dispirited, only, however, to sally out the following +morning with renewed determination. They would walk incredibly long +distances to places where they heard of a job of work; and this, not for +a few days, but for many, many days. And I have seen such a man sit down +wearily by the fire (we had a common room for sitting, and cooking, and +everything), with a hungry, despondent look—he had not tasted food all +day—and accosted by another, scarcely less poor than himself, with ‘Here, +mate, get this into thee,’ handing him at the same time a piece of bread +and some cold meat, and afterwards some coffee, and adding, ‘Better luck +to-morrow; keep up your pecker.’ And all this without any idea that they +were practising the most splendid patience, fortitude, courage, and +generosity I had ever seen.” + +Perhaps the eulogy is a little overstrained. Men, even if they are not +working men, do learn to help each other, unless they are very bad +indeed; and it does not seem so surprising to me as it does to Mr. +Plimsoll that even such men “talk of absent wife and children.” +Certainly it is the least a husband and the father of a family can do. + +The British working man has his fair share of faults, but just now he has +been so belaboured on all sides with praise that he is getting to be +rather a nuisance. In our day it is to be feared he is rapidly +degenerating. He does not work so well as he did, nor so long, and he +gets higher wages. One natural result of this state of things is that +the class just above him—the class who, perhaps, are the worst off in the +land—have to pay an increased price for everything that they eat and +drink or wear, or need in any way for the use of their persons or the +comfort and protection of their homes. Another result, and this is much +worse, is that the workman spends his extra time and wages in the +public-houses, and that we have an increase of paupers to keep and crime +to punish. There is no gainsaying admitted facts; there is no use in +boasting of the increased intelligence of the working man, when the facts +are the other way. As he gets more money and power, he becomes less +amenable to rule and reason. Last year, according to Colonel Henderson’s +report, drunk and disorderly cases had increased from 23,007 to 33,867. +It is to be expected the returns of the City police will be equally +unsatisfactory. As I write, I take the following from _The Echo_: In a +certain district in London, facing each other, are two corner-houses in +which the business of a publican and a chemist are respectively carried +on. In the course of twenty-five years the houses have changed hands +three times, and at the last change the purchase money of the +public-house amounted to £14,300, and that of the chemist’s business to +only £1,000. Of course the publican drives his carriage and pair, while +the druggist has to use Shanks’s pony. + +But this is a digression. It is of lodging-houses I write. It seems +that there are lodging-houses of many kinds. Perhaps some of the best +were those of which Mr. Plimsoll had experience. The Peabody buildings +are, I believe, not inhabited by poor people at all. The worst, perhaps, +are those in Flower and Dean Street, Spitalfields, and the adjacent +district. One naturally assumes that no good can come out of Flower and +Dean Street, just as it was assumed of old that no good could come out of +Nazareth. This was illustrated in a curious way the other day. One of +the earnest philanthropists connected with Miss Macpherson’s Home of +Industry at the corner, was talking with an old woman on the way of +salvation. She pleaded that on that head she had nothing to learn. She +had led a good life, she had never done anybody any harm, she never used +bad language, and, in short, she had lived in the village of Morality, to +quote John Bunyan, of which Mr. Worldly Wiseman had so much to say when +he met poor Christian, just as he had escaped with his heavy burden on +his shoulder out of the Slough of Despond, and that would not do for our +young evangelist. + +“My good woman,” said he sadly, “that is not enough. You may have been +all you say, and yet not be a true Christian after all.” + +“Of course it ain’t,” said a man who had been listening to the +conversation. “You’ll never get to heaven that way. You must believe on +the Lord Jesus Christ, and then you will be saved.” + +“Ah,” said the evangelist, “you know that, do you? I hope you live +accordingly.” + +“Oh yes; I know it well enough,” was the reply; “but of course I can’t +practise it. I am one of the light-fingered gentry, I am, and I live in +Flower and Dean Street;” and away he hurried as if he saw a policeman, +and as if he knew that he was wanted. + +The above anecdote, the truth of which I can vouch for, indicates the +sort of place Flower and Dean Street is, and the kind of company one +meets there. It is a place that always gives the police a great deal of +trouble. Close by is a court, even lower in the world than Flower and +Dean Street, and it is to me a wonder how such a place can be suffered to +exist. What with Keane’s Court and Flower and Dean Street the police +have their hands pretty full day and night, especially the latter. +Robbery and drunkenness and fighting and midnight brawls are the regular +and normal state of affairs, and are expected as a matter of course. +When I was there last a woman had been taken out of Keane’s Court on a +charge of stabbing a man she had inveigled into one of the houses, or +rather hovels—you can scarcely call them houses in the court. She was +let off, as the man refused to appear against her, and the chances are +that she will again be at her little tricks. They have rough ways, the +men and women of this district; they are not given to stand much upon +ceremony; they have little faith in moral suasion, but have unbounded +confidence in physical force. A few miles of such a place, and London +were a Sodom and Gomorrah. + +But I have not yet described the street. We will walk down it, if you +please. It is not a long street, nor is it a very new one; but is it a +very striking one, nevertheless. Every house almost you come to is a +lodging-house, and some of them are very large ones, holding as many as +four hundred beds. Men unshaven and unwashed are standing loafing about, +though in reality this is the hour when, all over London, honest men are +too glad to be at work earning their daily bread. A few lads and men are +engaged in the intellectual and fashionable amusement known as pitch and +toss. Well, if they play fairly, I do not know that City people can find +much fault with them for doing so. They cannot get rid of their money +more quickly than they would were they to gamble on the Stock Exchange, +or to invest in limited liability companies or mines which promise cent. +per cent. and never yield a rap but to the promoters who get up the +bubble, or to the agent who, as a friend, begs and persuades you to go +into them, as he has a lot of shares which he means to keep for himself, +but of which, as you are a friend, and as a mark of special favour, he +would kindly accommodate you with a few. + +But your presence is not welcomed in the street. You are not a lodger, +that is clear. Curious and angry eyes follow you all the way. Of course +your presence there—the apparition of anything respectable—is an event +which creates alarm rather than surprise. + +In the square mile of which this street in the centre, it is computed are +crowded one hundred and twenty thousand of our poorest population—men and +women who have sunk exhausted in the battle of life, and who come here to +hide their wretchedness and shame, and in too many cases to train their +little ones to follow in their steps. The children have neither shoes +nor stockings. They are covered with filth, they are innocent of all the +social virtues, and here is their happy hunting-ground; they are a people +by themselves. + +All round are planted Jews and Germans. In Commercial Street the chances +are you may hear as much German as if you were in Deutschland itself. +Nor is this all; the place is a perfect Babel. It is a pity that Flower +and Dean Street should be, as it were, representative of England and her +institutions. It must give the intelligent foreigner rather a shock. + +But _place aux dames_ is my motto, and even in the slums let woman take +the position which is her due. In the streets the ladies are not in any +sense particular, and can scream long and loudly, particularly when under +the influence of liquor. They are especially well developed as to their +arms, and can defend themselves, if that be necessary, against the +rudeness or insolence or the too-gushing affection of the other sex. As +to their manners and morals, perhaps the less said about them the better. + +Let us step into one of the lodging-houses which is set apart exclusively +for their use. The charge for admission is threepence or fourpence a +night, or a little less by the week. You can have no idea of the size of +one of these places unless you enter. We will pay a visit in the +afternoon, when most of the bedrooms are empty. At the door is a +box-office, as it were, for the sale of tickets of admission. Behind +extends a large room, provided at one end with cooking apparatus and well +supplied with tables and chairs, at which are seated a few old helpless +females, who have nothing to do, and don’t seem to care much about +getting out into the sun. Let us ascend under the guidance of the female +who has charge of the place, and who has to sit up till 3 A.M. to admit +her fair friends, some of whom evidently keep bad hours and are given +rather too much to the habit of what we call making a night of it. Of +course most of the rooms are unoccupied, but they are full of beds, which +are placed as close together as possible; and this is all the furniture +in the room, with the exception of the glass, without which no one, male +or female, can properly perform the duties of the toilette. One woman is +already thus occupied. In another room, we catch sight of a few still in +bed, or sitting listlessly on their beds. They are mostly youthful, and +regard us from afar with natural curiosity—some actually seeming inclined +to giggle at our intrusion. As it is, we feel thankful that we need not +remain a moment in such company, and we leave them to their terrible +fate. + +A few hours later they will be out in the streets, seeking whom they may +devour. Go down Whitechapel way, and you will see them in shoals +haunting the public-houses of the district, or promenading the pavement, +or talking to men as sunk in the social scale as themselves. They are +fond of light dresses; they eschew bonnets or hats. Some are +half-starved; others seem in good condition; and they need be so to stand +the life they have to lead. Let us hope Heaven will have more mercy on +such as they than man. It cannot be that decent respectable women live +in Flower and Dean Street. + +But what of the men? Well, I answer at the first glance, you see that +they are a rough lot. Some are simply unfortunate and friendless and +poor; others do really work honestly for their living—as dock labourers, +or as porters in some of the surrounding markets, or at any chance job +that may come in their way; many, alas, are of the light-fingered +fraternity. The police have but a poor opinion of the honesty of the +entire district—but then the police are so uncharitable! The members of +the Christian community and others who come here on a Sunday and preach +in more than one of the lodging-houses in the street have a better +opinion, and certainly can point to men and women reclaimed by their +labours, and now leading decent godly lives. It requires some firmness +and Christian love to go preaching in these huge lodging-houses, in which +one, it seemed to me, might easily be made away with. Even in the +daytime they have an ugly look, filled as they are with idle men, who are +asleep now, but who will be busy enough by-and-by—when honesty has done +its work and respectability is gone to bed. As commercial speculations I +suppose money is made by these places. The proprietor has but little +expense to incur in the way of providing furniture or attendance, and in +some cases he supplies refreshments, on which of course he makes a +profit. But each lodger is at liberty to cater for himself, or to leave +it alone if times are bad and money is scarce. At any rate there is the +fire always burning, and the locker in which each lodger may stow away +what epicurean delicacy or worldly treasure he may possess. I have been +in prisons and workhouses, and I can say the inmates of such places are +much better lodged, and have better care taken of them, and are better +off than the poor people of Flower and Dean Street. The best thing that +could happen for them would be the destruction of the whole place by +fire. Circumstances have much to do with the formation of character, and +in a more respectable neighbourhood they would become a little more +respectable themselves. + +In the lodging-houses at Westminster the inhabitants are of a much more +industrious character. In Lant Street, Borough, they are quite the +reverse. A man should have his wits about him who attempts to penetrate +into the mysteries or to understand the life of a low lodging-house +there. + +For ages the Mint in the Borough has gained an unenviable name, not only +as the happy hunting-ground of the disreputable, the prostitute, the +thief, the outcast, the most wretched and the lowest of the poor, yet +there was a time when it was great and famous. There that brave and +accomplished courtier, the Duke of Suffolk, brought his royal bride, the +handsome sister of our Henry VIII. It was there poor Edward VI. came on +a visit all the way from Hampton Court. It was the goodly gift of Mary +the unhappy and ill-fated to the Archbishop of York. Somehow or other +Church property seems to be detrimental to the respectability of a +neighbourhood, hence the truth of the old adage, “The nearer the church, +the farther from God.” At any rate this was the case as regards the Mint +in the Borough, which in Gay’s time had sunk so low that he made it the +scene of his “Beggar’s Opera,” and there still law may be said to be +powerless, and there still they point out the house in which lived +Jonathan Wild. In the reign of William, our Protestant hero, and George +I., our Hanoverian deliverer, a desperate attempt was made to clear the +place of the rogues and vagabonds to whom it afforded shelter and +sanctuary; but somehow or other in vain, though all debtors under fifty +pounds had their liabilities wiped off by royal liberality. The place +was past mending, and so it has ever since remained. It is not a +neighbourhood for a lady at any time, but to inhabit it all that is +requisite is that, by fair means or foul (in the Mint they are as little +particular as to the way in which money is made as they are in the City +or on the Stock Exchange), you have fourpence to pay for a night’s +lodging. All round the place prices may be described as low, to suit the +convenience of the customer. You are shaved for a penny. Your hair is +cut and curled for twopence. The literature for sale may be termed +sensational, and the chandlers’ shops, which are of the truest character +if I may judge by the contents, do a trade which may be described as +miscellaneous. + +It is sad to see the successive waves of pauperism rise and burst and +disappear. On they come, one after another, as fast as the eye can catch +them, and far faster than the mind can realise all the hidden and complex +causes of which they are the painful result. One asks, Is this always to +be so? Is there to be no end to this supply, of which we see only the +surface, as it were? Are all the lessons of the past in vain? Cannot +Science, with all its boasted arts, remove the causes, be they what they +may, and effect a cure? Is the task too appalling for philanthropy? +Some such thoughts came into my head as I looked upon the dense mass of +men and women, destitute of work and food, who, at an early hour on the +first Sunday in the New Year were collected from all the lodging-houses +in the unpretentious but well-known building known as the Gray’s Yard +Ragged Church and Schools, in a part of London not supposed, like the +Seven Dials, to be the home of the wretched, and close by the mansions of +the rich and the great. When I entered, as many as seven hundred had +been got together, and there was a crowd three hundred strong, equally +hungry, equally destitute, and equally worthy of Christian benevolence. +On entering, each person, as soon as he or she had taken his or her seat, +was treated to two thick slices of bread-and-butter and a cup of coffee, +and at the close of the service there was the usual distribution of a +pound meat-pie and a piece of cake to each individual, and coffee _ad +libitum_. It may be added that the cost of this breakfast does not come +out of the funds of the institution, but is defrayed by special +subscriptions, and that Mr. John Morley had sent, as he always does, a +parcel of one thousand Gospels for distribution. But what has this got +to do, asks the reader, with the thought which, as I say, the sight +suggested to me? Why, everything. In the course of the morning, Mr. F. +Bevan, the chairman, asked those who had been there before to hold up +their hands, and there was not one hand held up in answer to the +question. There was a similar negative response when it was asked of +that able-bodied mass before me—for there were no very old men in the +crowd—as to whether any of them were in regular work. This year’s +pauperism is, then, but the crop of the year. Relieved to-day, next year +another crowd will follow; and so the dark and sullen waves, mournfully +moaning and wailing, of the measureless ocean of human sorrow and +suffering, and want and despair, ever come and ever go. The Christian +Church is the lifeboat sailing across this ocean in answer to the cry for +help, and rescuing them that are ready to perish. There are cynics who +say even all this Christmas feasting does no good. It is a fact that on +Christmas week there is a sudden and wonderful exodus from the workhouses +around London. + +We cannot get improved men and women till we have improved +lodging-houses. Recently it was calculated that in St. Giles’s parish +(once it was St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields), there were no less than 3,000 +families living in single rooms. Again, in the parish of Holborn, there +were quite 12,000, out of a population of 44,000, living in single rooms. +Under such circumstances, what can we expect but physical and moral +degradation? Healthy life is impossible for man or woman, boy or girl. +A Divine Authority tells us, men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs +of thistles. As I write, however, a ray of light reaches me. It appears +nearly 10,000 persons are now reaping the benefit of the Peabody Fund. +In the far east there are buildings at Shadwell and Spitalfields; in the +far west at Chelsea, in Westminster, and at Grosvenor Road, Pimlico—the +latter perfectly appointed edifice alone accommodating 1,952 persons. As +many as 768 are lodged in the Islington block, and on the south side of +the Thames there are Peabody buildings at Bermondsey, in the Blackfriars +Road, Stamford Street, and Southwark Street. One room in the Peabody +buildings is never let to two persons. A writer in _The Daily News_ +says: Advantage has been taken by the Peabody trustees to purchase land +brought into the market by the operation of the Artisans and Labourers’ +Dwellings Act. At the present moment nineteen blocks of building are in +course of removal either by the City or the Metropolitan Board of Works. +They are situate at Peartree Court, Clerkenwell; Goulston Street, +Whitechapel; St. George the Martyr, Southwark; Bedfordbury; Whitechapel +and Limehouse, near the London Docks; High Street, Islington; Essex Road, +Islington; Whitecross Street; Old Pye Street, Westminster; Great Wild +Street, Drury Lane; Marylebone, hard by the Edgware Road; Wells Street, +Poplar; Little Coram Street; and Great Peter Street, Westminster. All +these are under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The +remaining three—at Petticoat Square, at Golden Lane, and at Barbican—are +being removed by the Corporation of the City of London. It is estimated +that forty-one acres of land will be laid bare by this clearance—a space +capable of lodging properly at least as many thousand people. There are +of course other helpers in the same direction as the Peabody trustees, +without being quite in the same sense public bodies administering a large +fund for a special purpose, with the single object of extending its +sphere of usefulness in accordance with public policy. Some of the +companies, however, work for five per cent. return, and their efforts to +construct suitable dwellings for workpeople and labourers are very +valuable. The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company has buildings at +Bethnal Green Road, at Shoreditch, at Willow Street, and close to the +goods station of the Great Northern Railway, besides two blocks near the +City Road. The Metropolitan Association has blocks of buildings in +Whitechapel, and in many spots farther west, as have the Marylebone +Association, the London Labourers’ Dwellings Society, and other bodies of +similar kind. The success of Miss Octavia Hill in encouraging the +construction of dwellings of the class required is well known, as are the +buildings erected by Sir Sydney Waterlow, Mr. G. Cutt, and Mr. Newson. +It is almost needless to add that the Baroness Burdett-Coutts has taken a +warm interest in this important movement, as a building at Shoreditch now +accommodating seven hundred persons will testify. + + + + +VII.—STUDIES AT THE BAR. + + +On Christmas Eve, in the midst of a dense fog that filled one’s throat +and closed one’s eyes, and rendered the vast City one huge sepulchre, as +it were, peopled by ghosts and ghouls, I spent a few hours in what may be +called studies at the bar. + +First, I turned my steps down Whitechapel way. It is there the pressure +of poverty is felt as much as anywhere in London, and as it was early in +the evening I went there, I saw it under favourable circumstances, for +the sober people would be shopping, and the drunken ones would scarcely +have commenced that riot and quarrelling which are the result in most +cases of indulgence in alcohol. From the publican’s point of view, of +course, I had nothing to expect but unmitigated pleasure. The stuff they +sell, they tell us, is the gift of a good Providence, sent us in order to +alleviate the gloom and lighten the cares of life. “It is a poor heart +that never rejoices,” and on Christmas Eve, when we are thinking of the +birth of Him who came to send peace on earth and goodwill amongst men, a +little extra enjoyment may be expected. In some bars ample provision had +been made for the event; decorations had been freely resorted to, and +everything had been done to give colour to the delusion that Christmas +jollity was to be produced and heightened by the use of what the publican +had to sell. Almost the first glimpse I got of the consequences of +adherence to this doctrine was at a corner house in Whitechapel, before I +got as far as the church, where from the side-door of a gin-palace rushed +out a little dirty woman with a pot of beer in her hand, followed by a +taller one, who, catching hold of her, began to hit her. On this the +attacked woman took a savage grip of the front hair of her opponent, who +began to scream “Murder!” with might and main. A crowd was formed +immediately, in the expectation of that favourite entertainment of a +certain section of the British public—a free fight between two tipsy +women; but, alas! they were too far gone to fight, and, after a good deal +of bad language, the woman with the porter pursued her victorious way, +while the other, almost too drunk to stand, returned to the bar, to +rejoin the dirty group she had left, and to be served again—contrary, as +I understand, to the law of the land—with the liquor of which she had +already had more than enough. In that compartment everything was +dirty—the women at the bar and the man behind it, nor was there a spark +of good feeling or happiness in the group. There they were—the wives and +mothers of the people—all equally besotted, all equally wretched. Oh +heavens, what a sight! + +And this reminds me of what I saw at a bar in the Gray’s Inn Road, in one +of the largest of the many houses opened for refreshment, as it is +called. In one compartment there were some thirty or forty wretched, +dirty, ragged people, mostly women. One of them was in a state of +elevation, and was dancing to a set who were evidently too far gone to +appreciate her performance. With tipsy gravity, however, she continued +her self-appointed task. Ah, poor thing! thought I, you are gay and +hilarious now—to-morrow you will lie shivering in the cold—possibly +crying for a morsel of bread. You have a garret to sleep in, and nothing +to look forward to but the hospital or the workhouse. Heaven wills it, +says the pietist. Heaven does nothing of the kind. In the mad +debauchery I saw in that bar I am sure there must have been spent money +that would have given the wretched topers happier homes, better dinners, +and a future far happier than that which I saw hanging over them. + +In Chancery Lane I came on several illustrations of the joyous +conviviality of the season. One poor fellow just before me came down +with a tremendous crash. Another nearly ran me down as he steered his +difficult way along the slippery street and through the gloomy fog. +Another merry old soul had given up all attempt to find his way home, and +had seated himself on a doorstep, planted his hat on one side of his +head, put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and there, asleep, +with a short pipe in his mouth, and his legs stretched out, looked as +mournful and seedy an object as anyone could desire to contemplate. He +had evidently been having a pleasant evening with his companions over a +social glass, merely keeping up good old English customs, wishing himself +and everyone he knew a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. + +At the gin-palaces near the railway termini, and in those bordering on +any place of general marketing, the crowd of customers was enormous, and +the class was far superior to those I saw in Drury Lane or Whitechapel, +or the Gray’s Inn Road. They were real respectable working men and their +wives, who had been out marketing for the morrow, and who, proud of their +success in that direction, and of the store of good things they had +collected for the anticipated dinner, had to treat themselves with a +parting glass ere they went home. It was a busy time for the men at the +bar. In one large public with four or five compartments, I reckoned +there must have been nearly a hundred customers. It was quite an effort +for anyone to get served; he had to fight his way through the mob to pay +his money and get his glass, and then to struggle back to a quiet corner +to drink off its contents with a friend or his wife, but there was no +drunkenness. + +The men and women of the respectable working class are not drunkards. +They have too much sense for that, but they were merry, and a little +inclined to be too talkative and heedless. For instance, a party of four +went straight from a public-house to a railway station at which I +happened to be waiting. One couple were going by the train home—another +couple had come to see them off. The wife of the travelling party was +fat and heavy, and in her jolly, careless mood, induced by the evening’s +conviviality, as the train came up she missed her step and fell between +the wheels and the platform. Fortunately the train had come to a +standstill, or that woman and her husband and her family would have had +anything but a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. + +In one place, patronised by navvies and their wives, there was such a +hideous exhibition of indecency that I may not record it. “Why don’t you +interfere?” said a gentleman to the pot-boy. “Oh,” was the reply, “you +can’t say anything at this season of the year. It is best to leave them +alone.” + +In such low neighbourhoods as Drury Lane it seemed to me that the men +preponderated; indeed, at many places they were the only customers. One +could not much wonder to find them in such places. Either they live in +the low lodging-houses close by, where they pay fourpence a night for a +bed, or they have a room for themselves and families in the +neighbourhood. In neither case is there much peace for them in what they +call their home. They are best out of doors, and then comes the +attraction of the public-house, and on Christmas Eve in the dull raw fog +almost the only bright spot visible was the gleam of its gaudy splendour, +and as a natural consequence bars were pretty well filled. They always +are in poor neighbourhoods of a night, and especially such as have a +corner situation. It is always good times with the proprietors of such +places, even if trade be bad and men are out of work, and little children +cry for bread and old people die of starvation and want. A corner +public-house is never driven into the bankruptcy court. + +But let me change the scene. These low neighbourhoods are really +disgusting to people of cultivated minds and refined tastes. I am +standing in a wonderfully beautiful hall. On one side is a long counter +filled with decanters and wineglasses. Behind these are some lively +young ladies, fashionably dressed, and with hair elaborately arranged. +The customers are chiefly young men, whom Albert Smith would have +described as gents. They mostly patronise what they call “bittah” beer, +and they are wise in doing so, as young men rarely can afford wine, and +“bittah” beer is not so likely to affect the few brains they happen to +have about them. Of course a good deal of wine is drunk, and there is a +great demand for grog, but beer is the prevailing beverage; and as to tea +and coffee and such things, they are unfairly handicapped, as the Hebe at +the bar charges me sixpence for a small cup of coffee, while the gent by +my side pays but twopence for his beer; nor can I say that he pays too +much, as he has the opportunity thus afforded to him of talking to a +young lady who has no refuge from his impertinence, and who is bound to +be civil unless the cad is notoriously offensive, as her trade is to sell +liquor, and the more he talks the more he drinks. But the mischief does +not end here. Many a married man fancies it is fun to loll over the +counter and spoon with the girls behind. He has more cash than the gent, +and spends more. If he is not a rich man he would pass himself off as +such; he drinks more than is good for him; he makes the young ladies +presents; he talks to them in a sentimental strain, and it may be he has +a wife and family at home who are in need of almost the necessaries of +life. + +In many cases the end of all this is wretchedness at home and loss of +character and means of subsistence; if he is in a house of business he +lives beyond his income, and embezzlement is the result. If he be in +business on his own account his end is bankruptcy, at any rate his health +is not benefited by his indulgence at the bar, and to most men who have +to earn their daily bread loss of health is loss of employment and +poverty, more or less enduring and grinding and complete. What the +gin-shop is to the working man, the restaurant and the refreshment bar +are to the middle classes of society. There is no disgrace in dropping +in there, and so the young man learns to become a sot. Planted as they +are at all the railway termini, they are an ever-present danger; they are +fitted up in a costly style, and the young ladies are expected to be as +amiable and good-looking as possible, and thus when a young man has a few +minutes to spare at a railway terminus, naturally he makes his way to the +refreshment bar. + +Dartmoor was full, writes the author of “Convict Life,” with the men whom +drink had led into crime—from the mean wretch who pawned his wife’s boots +for ninepence, which he spent in the gin-shop, to the young man from the +City who became enamoured “with one of the painted and powdered +decoy-ducks who are on exhibition at the premises of a notorious publican +within a mile of Regent Circus.” At first he spent a shilling or two +nightly; but he quickly found that the road to favour was at bottle of +Moët, of which his _inamorata_ and her painted sisters partook very +freely. The acquaintance soon ripened under the influence of champagne +till he robbed his employer, and was sent to Dartmoor. “He told me +himself,” writes our author, “that from the time he first went to that +tavern he never went to bed perfectly sober, and that all his follies +were committed under the influence of champagne.” + +Another case he mentions was even worse. At the time of his conviction +the young man of whom he writes was on the eve of passing an examination +for one of the learned professions; but be had been an _habitué_ of the +buffet of let us call it the Royal Grill Room Theatre and a lounger at +the stage door of that celebrated establishment, and had made the +acquaintance of one of the ladies of the ballet. Under the influence of +champagne he also soon came to grief. “In the name of God,” says the +writer to young men in London, “turn up taverns.” + +But what is to be done? The publican, whether he keeps a gin-palace or a +refreshment bar, must push his trade. The total number of public-houses, +beershops, and wine-houses in the Metropolitan Parliamentary boroughs is +8,973, or one to each 333 persons. This is bad; but Newcastle-on-Tyne is +worse, having one public-house to 160 inhabitants, and Manchester has one +to every 164 inhabitants. The amount paid in license-fees by publicans +in the Metropolitan district last year amounted to £108,316; the total +for the kingdom being £1,133,212. But great as is the number of these +places, the trade flourishes. A licensed house in one of the finest +parts of London (Bethnal Green), lately sold for upwards of £22,000. +Another, a third or fourth rate house in North London, sold for £18,000; +other licensed houses sell for £30,000, £40,000, £50,000, and even more. +As to the refreshment bars, it lately came out in evidence that a partner +in one of the firms most connected with them stated his income to be +£40,000 a year. It is said one firm, whose business is chiefly devoted +to refreshment bars, pays its wine merchants as much as £1,000 a week. + + + + +VIII.—IN AN OPIUM DEN. + + +An effort is being made by a band of British philanthropists, of which +the Rev. Mr. Turner is secretary, to put down, if not the opium traffic, +at any rate that part of it which is covered by the British flag. Opium +is to the Chinese what the quid is to the British tar, or the gin-bottle +to the London charwoman. But in reality, as I firmly believe, for the +purpose of opening the door to all sorts of bribery and corruption, the +traffic is prohibited as much as possible by the Chinese Government, for +the ostensible object of preserving the health and morals of the people. +This task is a very difficult one. A paternal Government is always in +difficulties, and once we Christian people of England have gone to war +with the Chinese in order to make them take our Indian-grown opium—a +manufacture in which a large capital is invested, and the duty of which +yields the British Government in India a magnificent revenue. It is a +question for the moralist to decide how far a Government is justified in +saying to a people: “We know so and so is bad, but as you will use it, +you may as well pay a heavy tax on its use.” That is the practical way +in which statesmen look at it, and of course there is a good deal to be +said for that view. But it is not pleasant to feel that money, even if +it be used for State purposes, is made in a dirty manner; though I have +been in countries where the minister of the religion of holiness and +purity is content to take a part of his living from the brothel-keeper +and the prostitute. Evidently there are many men as ready to take the +devil’s money as was Rowland Hill to accept the Bible at his hands. + +But I am touching on questions not to be settled in the twinkling of an +eye, or by a phrase or two in print. Perhaps I may best serve the cause +of humanity if, instead of saying what I think and feel, I merely content +myself with describing what I saw in the East-End of London, one Saturday +night, in this year of grace one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five. + +Have my readers ever been in Bluegate Fields, somewhere down Ratcliffe +Highway? The glory of the place is departed. I am writing _more +Americano_, where the wickedest man in the town is always regarded as a +hero. The City missionary and the East London Railway between them have +reformed the place. To the outward eye it is a waste howling spot, but +it is a garden of Eden to what it was when a policeman dared not go by +himself into its courts, and when respectability, if it ever strayed into +that filthy quarter, generally emerged from it minus its watch and coat, +and with a skull more or less cracked, and with a face more or less +bloody. + +“Thanks to you,” said a surgeon to a City missionary who has been +labouring in the spot some sixteen years, and is now recognised as a +friend wherever he goes, “thanks to you,” said the surgeon, “I can now +walk along the place alone, and in safety, a thing I never expected to +do;” and I believe that the testimony is true, and that it is in such +districts the labours of the City missionary are simply invaluable. Down +in those parts what we call the Gospel has very little power. It is a +thing quite outside the mass. There are chapels and churches, it is +true, but the people don’t go into them. I pass a great Wesleyan I +chapel. “How is it attended?” I ask; and the answer is: “Very badly +indeed.” I hear that the nearest Independent chapel is turned into a +School Board school; and there is Rehoboth,—I need not say it is a hyper +place of worship, and was, when Bluegate Fields was a teeming mass of +godless men and women, only attended by some dozen or so of the elect, +who prayed their prayers, and read their Bible, and listened to their +parsons with sublime indifference to the fact that there at their very +door, under their very eyes, within reach of their very hands, were souls +to be saved, and brands to be snatched from the burning, and jewels to be +won for the Redeemer’s crown. I can only hear of one preacher in this +part who is really getting the people to hear him, and he is the Rev. +Harry Jones, who deserves to be made a bishop, and who would be, if the +Church of England was wise and knew its dangers, and was careful to avert +the impending storm, which I, though I may not live to see the day, know +to be near. But let us pass, on leaving Rehoboth, a black and ugly +carcass, on the point of being pulled down by the navvy. I turn into a +little court on my right, one of the very few the railway has spared for +the present. It may be there are some dozen houses in the court. The +population is, I should certainly imagine, quite up to the accommodation +of the place. Indeed, if I might venture to make a remark, it would be +to the effect that a little more elbow-room would be of great advantage +to all. From every door across the court are ropes, and on these ropes +the blankets and sheets and family linen are hanging up to dry. These I +have to duck under as I walk along; but the people are all civil, though +my appearance makes them stare, and all give a friendly and respectful +greeting to the City missionary by my side. + +All at once my conductor disappears in a little door, and I follow, +walking, on this particular occasion, by faith, and not by sight; for the +passage was dark, and I knew not my way. I climb up a flight of stairs, +and find myself in a little crib—it would be an abuse of terms to call it +a room. It is just about my height, and I fancy it is a great deal +darker and dingier than the room in which a first-class misdemeanant like +Colonel Baker was confined. The place is full of smoke. It is not at +first that I take in its contents. As I stand by the door, there are two +beds of an ancient character; between these beds is a very narrow +passage, and it is in this passage I recognise the master of the house—a +black-eyed, cheerful Chinaman, who has become so far naturalised amongst +us as to do us the honour of taking the truly British name of Johnson. +Johnson is but thinly clad. I see the perspiration glistening on his +dark and shining skin; but Johnson seems as pleased to see me as if he +had known me fifty years. In time, through the smoke, I see Johnson’s +friends—dark, perspiring figures curled on the beds around, one, for want +of room, squatting, cross-legged, in a corner—each with a tube of the +shape and size of a German flute in his hands. I look at this tube with +some curiosity. In the middle of it is a little bowl. In that little +bowl is the opium, which is placed there as if it were a little bit of +tow dipped in tar, and which is set fire to by being held to the little +lamps, of which there are three or four on the bed or in the room. This +operation performed, the smoker reclines and draws up the smoke, and +looks a very picture of happiness and ease. Of course I imitate the bad +example; I like to do as the Romans do, and Johnson hands me a tube which +I put into my mouth, while, as I hold it to the lamp, he inserts the +heated opium into the bowl; and, as I pull, the thick smoke curls up and +adds to the cloud which makes the room as oppressive as the atmosphere of +a Turkish bath. How the little pig-eyes glisten! and already I feel that +I may say: “Am I not a man and a brother?” The conversation becomes +general. Here we are jolly companions every one. Ching tells me the +Chinese don’t send us the best tea; and grins all across his yellow face +as I say that I know that, but intimate that they make us pay for it as +if they did. Tsing smiles knowingly as I ask him what his wife does when +he is so long away. Then we have a discussion as to the comparative +merits of opium and beer, and my Chinese friends sagely observe that it +is all a matter of taste. “You mans like beer, and we mans in our +country like opium.” All were unanimous in saying that they never had +more than a few whiffs, and all that I could learn of its effects when +taken in excess was that opium sent them off into a stupid sleep. With +the somewhat doubtful confessions of De Quincey and Coleridge in my +memory, I tried to get them to acknowledge sudden impulses, poetic +inspirations, splendid dreams; but of such things these little fellows +had never conceived; the highest eulogium I heard was: “You have +pains—pain in de liver, pain in de head—you smoke—all de pains go.” The +most that I could learn was that opium is an expensive luxury for a poor +man. Three-halfpenny-worth only gives you a few minutes’ smoke, and +these men say they don’t smoke more at a time. Lascar Sall, a rather +disreputable female, well known in the neighbourhood, would, they told +me, smoke five shillings-worth of opium a day. Johnson’s is the +clubhouse of the Chinese. He buys the opium and prepares it for smoking, +and they come and smoke and have a chat, and a cup of tea and a slice of +bread and butter, and go back and sleep on board ship. Their little +smoking seemed to do them no harm. The City missionary says he has never +seen them intoxicated. It made them a little lazy and sleepy—that is +all; but they had done their day’s work, and had earned as much title to +a little indulgence as the teetotaler, who regales himself with coffee; +or the merchant, who smokes his cigar on his pleasant lawn on a summer’s +eve. I own when I left the room I felt a little giddy, that I had to +walk the crowded streets with care; but then I was a novice, and the +effect would not be so great on a second trial. I should have enjoyed a +cup of good coffee after; but that is a blessing to which we in London, +with all our boasted civilisation, have not attained. I frankly avow, as +I walked to the railway station, I almost wished myself back in the opium +den. There I heard no foul language, saw no men and women fighting, no +sots reeling into the gutters, or for safety shored up against the wall. +For it was thus the mob, through which I had to pass, was preparing +itself for the services of the sanctuary, and the rest of the Sabbath. + + + + +IX.—LONDON’S EXCURSIONISTS. + + +Most of my London readers know Southend. It is as pretty a place, when +the tide is up and the weather is fine, as you can find anywhere near +London. Standing on the cliff on a clear day it is a lovely panorama +which greets your eye. At your feet rolls the noble river, to which +London owes its greatness, and on which sail up and down, night and day, +no matter how stormy the season may be, the commercial navies of the +world. On the other side is the mouth of the Medway, with its docks and +men-of-war; and farther still beyond rise those Kentish hills of which +Dickens was so fond, and on the top of one of which he lived and died. +Look to the right, and you see over the broad expanse of waters and the +marshy land, destined, perhaps, at some distant day to be formed into +docks and to be crowded with busy life. Look at your left, and the old +town, with its pier a mile and a quarter long, really looks charming in +the summer sun. Or you see the shingly beach, at one end of which—you +learn by report of artillery-firing and the cloud of blue smoke curling +to the sky—is Shoeburyness. Far away on the open sea, and on the other +side, the tall cliffs of the Isle of Sheppey loom in the distance. + +Lie down on the grass and enjoy yourself. What ozone there is in the +atmosphere! What brightness in the scene! What joy seems all around! +Is it not pleasant, after the roar and bustle and smoke and dirt of +London, to come down here and watch the clouds casting their dark shadow +on the blue waters; or to follow the gulls, dipping and darting along +like so many white flies; or to see the feathery sails of yachts and +pleasure-boats, floating like flakes of snow; or to mark the dark track +from the funnel of yon steamer, on her way (possibly with a cargo of +emigrants, to whom fortune had been unfriendly at home) to some +Australian El Dorado—to which, if I only knew of it, I might probably go +myself— + + Where every man is free, + And none can be in bonds for life + For want of £ s. d. + +Well, you say, this is a fairy spot, a real Eden, where life is all +enjoyment, where health and happiness abound, if you could live but +always there. My dear sir, in a few hours such a change will come over +the spirit of the dream, such a diabolical transformation will be +effected, so foul will seem all that now is so bright and fair, that you +will flee the place, and, as you do so, I indignantly ask, What is the +use of British law? and wherein consists the virtue of British +civilisation? and of what avail is British Christianity, if in broad +daylight, in the principal thoroughfares of the town, your eyes and ears +are to be shocked by scenes of which I can only say that they would be +deemed disgraceful in a land of savages? Let us suppose it midday, and +the usual excursion trains and steamboats have landed some few thousand +men, women, and children, all dressed in their best, and determined, and +very properly, to enjoy themselves. What swarms you see everywhere! One +day actually, I am told, the railway brought as many as eleven thousand. +You say you are glad to see them; they have worked hard for a holiday; +and, shut up in the factories, and warehouses, and workshops of the +East-End, none have more of a right to, or more of a need of, the +enjoyment of a sea air. Dear sir, you are right; and for a little while +all goes on as you desire. The enjoyment is varied, and seems to consist +of wading up to the knees in the sea, in listening to Ethiopian +serenaders, in the consumption of oysters and apples, in donkey-riding, +in the purchase of useless ware at the nearest caravan or booth, in being +photographed, in taking a sail, or in strolling about the beach, and, as +regards the male part of the excursionists, smoking tobacco more or less +indifferent. But unfortunately the trains do not return before seven or +eight o’clock, and of course the excursionists must have a drop of beer +or spirits to pass away the time, many of them have no idea of a holiday, +and really and truly cannot enjoy themselves without; and the publicans +of Southend lay themselves out for the gratification of the excursionist +in this respect. They have monster taps and rooms in which the +excursionists sit and drink and make merry according to their custom. As +the day wears on the merriment becomes greater, and the noise a little +less harmonious. The fact is, all parties—men and women alike—have taken +a drop too much; the publican begins to feel a little anxious about his +property, especially as the two or three policemen belonging to the +place—wisely knowing what is coming, and their utter inability to cope +with a drunken mob, and the ridiculousness of their attempting to do +so—manage to get out of the way, and to hide their diminished heads in a +quieter and more respectable quarter of the town. + +At length quarrels arise, oaths and coarse language are heard, and out in +the street rush angry men to curse, and swear, and fight. The women, it +must be confessed, are ofttimes as bad as the men, and I have seen many a +heavy blow fall to the lot even of the sucking babe! In the brief +madness of the hour, friends, brothers, relatives rush at each other like +so many wild beasts, much to the amusement of the throng of inebriated +pleasure-seekers around. No one tries to interfere, as most of the men +and cardrivers, who make up the aboriginal population of the place, +evidently enjoy the disgusting spectacle. Once I stopped four weeks in +this place, and I began to tremble at the very sight of an excursionist. +I knew that the chances were that before the day was over my little ones +would have to look on the worst of sights. I saw one powerful fellow in +three fights in the course of one day; in one he had kicked a man in a +way which made him shriek and howl for an hour afterwards; in another +case he had knocked a woman down; and I left him on the railway platform, +stripped, and offering to fight anyone. I begged a policeman to +interfere and take the brute into custody, and in reply was told that +their rule was never to take a man into custody unless they saw the +assault committed, a thing the Southend police very properly take care +never to do; and yet on the occasion to which I refer the landlord of one +of the best hotels in the place was in vain, for the sake of his +respectable guests, begging the police to put a stop to the scene which +he himself rightly described as pandemonium. I must admit the police are +not inactive. There was a crowd round the beershop, from which a man +hopelessly intoxicated was being ejected. + +“Here, policeman,” said the beershop-keeper, “take this man away, he has +insulted me.” And the policeman complied with his request, and the poor +fellow, who was too drunk to stand upright, speedily embraces mother +earth. On another occasion a policeman displayed unusual activity. He +was after a man who had stolen actually an oyster, and for this the +policeman was on his track, and the man was to be conveyed at the expense +of the country to Rochford gaol. Let me draw a veil over the horrors of +the return home of an excursion train with its tipsy occupants, swearing +eternal friendship one moment while trying to tear each other’s eyes out +the next. It is bad enough to see the excursionists making their way +back to the railway station; here a couple of men will be holding up a +drunken mate, there are flushed boys and girls yelling and shrieking like +so many escaped lunatics. Now let us retrace our steps. You can tell by +the disorder and ruin all around where the excursionists have been, their +steps are as manifest to the observer as an invading army. Is there no +remedy for this state of things? Is a quiet watering-place, to which +people go to recover health and strength, to be at the mercy of any +drunken swarms who happen to have the half-crowns in their pockets +requisite for the purchase of an excursion ticket? Of course this is a +free country, and the right of a man to go to the devil his own way is a +right of which I would be the last to deprive my fellow citizens; but an +excursion train is a monster nuisance, of which our ancestors never +dreamed, and for which in their wisdom they made no provision. Of course +total abstinence is a remedy; but then the British workman is not a total +abstainer, and that is a question which I am not about to discuss. All I +want is to call attention to what is a daily scandal in the summer-time; +and to bid good people remember—while they are talking of heathenism +abroad—that heathenism at home, which, under the influence of strong +drink threatens to destroy all that is lovely and of good report in our +midst. + +Lest it be said that I exaggerate, that I give an erroneous idea of the +drinking customs of the working classes, let me quote the following +confession of a working man, when examined before a coroner’s jury, as to +the way in which he had spent his holiday last Good Friday: + +“We went for a walk, and had two pints of beer on the road. We got as +far as the Holloway Road Railway Station, and turned back. Deceased saw +me home, and then left me.” + +“Did he again call on you?” + +“Yes; at about twenty minutes to three o’clock.” + +“By appointment?” + +“Yes, to go to the Alexandra Palace. We left my place about a quarter to +three o’clock, and just had time for a drink at the public-house next +door to where I am living. We had two half-quarterns of whisky neat. I +there changed a sovereign. We then walked up the Holloway Road, and I +called on my father-in-law. He asked me to stop to tea, but I said I was +engaged to go to the Palace. Deceased and I then got as far as The Manor +House, where we had two glasses of bitter beer. We went on farther to +The Queen’s Head, which is the next public-house, and had some more +drink. From there we went to Hornsey, stopped at a public-house, and had +some whisky. We stopped again at The Nightingale, and had +half-a-quartern of whisky each. We could see the Palace from where we +then were, but did not know how to get there. We inquired the way, and +as we were going along we met the deceased’s younger brother, with a lot +of other boys, and we said a few words to them. Afterwards we went into +a public-house just opposite the Palace gates, and had either some brandy +or whisky, I don’t know which. We got chaffing with the man at the +pay-office, saying that he ought to let us in at half-price, as it was so +late, but he did not do so. We paid one shilling each to go in. We went +into the building and strolled about, looking at different things, and +had three pints of bitter ale at one of the stands. We then walked about +again, and afterwards had some brandy. We then began to get rather +stupefied, and after waiting about a little longer we had some more +brandy. I know we stopped at almost every buffet there was in the +Palace, and had something to drink at each of them. The lights were +being put out as we left the Palace. Deceased had hold of my arm, and we +went up to one of the buffets for the purpose of getting some cakes, or +something to eat, but the barmaid refused to serve us. Deceased said to +me, ‘I feel rather tidy, Joe,’ so I took hold of his arm, but in moving +away we both fell over some chairs. We left the Palace, and deceased +said to me, ‘Have you got any money?’ I said, ‘Yes; what I have got you +are welcome to.’ I then gave him a two-shilling piece, out of my purse, +which he put with the money he already had of his own. It must have been +very late then. We lost our way, but I think I said to the deceased, +‘This is the way we came in.’ Then we both fell down again. I don’t +remember getting away from there, or how I left deceased. I remember +nothing else that took place. I don’t know how we got on the steps of +the Grand Stand. I cannot remember seeing the boy Braybrook, nor how I +got out of the grounds, or to my own home.” + +“You say that you were drunk?” + +“Yes, we were both drunk, almost before we got to the Palace.” + +“You say that the deceased was also drunk?” + +“Yes.” + +“You don’t remember leaving the deceased upon the ground?” + +“No, I cannot remember how I got my hands cut, or the bruise on the back +of my head. I found my hat broken in the next morning, and my wife put +it right for me.” + + + + +X.—ON THE RIVER STEAMERS. + + +One fine summer day a friend agreed with me to go down the river. +Sheerness was fixed on, not on account of its beauty, for that part near +the harbour is by no means attractive, and like most of our naval and +military stations it is full of low public-houses, which by no means add +to its attractions, but simply on account of the fact that the place +could be reached and the return journey made in the course of a day; that +we could be on the water all the while, and that we should have a +pleasant breathing space in the midst of a life more or less necessarily +of toil. For people who cannot get away for a few weeks, who cannot rush +off to Brighton, or Margate, or Scarborough, or Scotland for a month, it +is a great treat to be able to go down to Sheerness and back for a day in +a luxurious steamer, where everyone has elbow-room. And on the day in +question it was a treat to us all in many respects; the day was fine, the +boat in which we sailed was that favourite one the _Princess Alice_—now, +alas! a name which sends a thrill of tragic horror through the land. To +us and the public at that time she was known merely as the safest, and +fastest, and pleasantest vessel of her class. + +We had beautiful views of marshes well filled with cattle, and of fields +waving with yellow corn, and with hills and green parks, and gentlemen’s +seats and churches afar off; the river with its craft great and small +going up or coming down is always a source of interesting study; and as +the fine fresh air, to be encountered below Gravesend, gave us an +appetite, we had a good dinner on board, well served and at a very +moderate price; tea and shrimps at a later period of the day were equally +acceptable; and many were the ladies and gentlemen who had come and found +what they sought, a pleasant outing. There were also many little +children who enjoyed themselves much, and the sight of whose pleasure was +an unmitigated enjoyment to old stagers, like myself and my friend. +Altogether it was a very agreeable day so far as the outward passage was +concerned. It was true that there was an unnecessary demand for beer, +even from the moderate drinker’s point of view, before the dinner hour. +Bottled ale and stout may not be taken with impunity on an empty stomach; +smoking may also be carried to excess, and as there are many persons who +dislike the very smell of it, the mixture in the atmosphere was certainly +far more than was desirable; but on a holiday on a Thames excursion boat +one must give and take, and not be too prone to find fault. People often +act differently abroad to what they do at home; we must allow for a +little wildness on such an occasion on the part of the general public. +It is not every day a man takes a holiday. It is not everyone who knows +how to use it when he has it. To many of us a holiday rarely comes more +than once a year, and gentlemen of my profession, alas! often do not get +that. + +Altogether we must have had at the least some seven or eight hundred +people on board. They swarmed everywhere; indeed, at times there was +little more than comfortable standing room, and the only locomotion +possible seemed to be that directed towards the cabins fore and aft in +pursuit of bottled beer. + +In the morning we were not so crowded, but in the evening we began to +experience inconvenience of another kind. It was at half-past ten A.M. +that we left the lower side of London Bridge; it was nine o’clock in the +evening when we arrived there again. All that time we had been on board +the steamer, with the exception of an hour and a half spent at Sheerness, +and all that time the demand for beer had been incessant. I never in all +my life saw such a consumption. I remarked to a friend enough beer had +been drunk to have floated apparently the _Princess Alice_ herself. +Everybody was drinking beer or porter, and the bottles were imperial +pints and held a good deal. Of course there were music and dancing; and +the girls, flushed and excited, drank freely of the proffered beverage, +each moment getting wilder and noisier. Old ladies and old gentlemen +complacently sipped their glass. It seemed to do them no harm. Their +passions had long been extinct. They had long outlived the heyday of +youth. All that the beer seemed to do for them was to give them a bit of +a headache, or to make them feel a little more tired or sleepy, that was +all. On the deck was a party of thirty or forty men who had come for a +day’s outing; decent mechanics evidently, very respectably dressed. They +kept themselves to themselves, had dined on board together, had taken tea +together, and now sat singing all the way home, in dreadfully melancholy +tones, all the old songs of our grandfathers’ days about “Remembering +those out,” “The Maids of merry, merry England,” and then came a yell in +the way of a chorus which would have frightened a Red Indian or a Zulu +Kaffir. After every song there was a whip round for some more beer, till +the seats underneath seemed to be choked up with empty bottles. They +were all a little under the influence of liquor, not unpleasantly so, but +placidly and stupidly; and as they listened with the utmost gravity while +one or another of the party was singing, you would have thought they were +all being tried for manslaughter at least. It is true they had a comic +man in the party, with a green necktie and a billycock hat, and a +shillalagh, who did his best under the circumstances, but he had to fight +at tremendous odds, as hilarity was not the order of the day on that part +of the deck. + +I went down into the cabin in search of it there, but was equally +unsuccessful. Every table was crammed with bottles of beer. Opposite me +was a picture indeed; a respectable-looking man had drunk himself into a +maudlin state, from which his friends were in vain endeavouring to arouse +him. He was a widower, and was muttering something unpleasant about +_her_ grave, which did not seem to accord with the ideas of two +gaily-dressed females—one of them with a baby in her arms—who hovered +around him, as if desirous to win him back to life and love and duty, his +male friends apparently having got tired of the hopeless task of making +him understand that he had been brought out with a view to being +agreeable, and to spending a happy day, and that he had no right to +finish up in so unreasonable a manner. Now and then he appealed to me, +declaring that he had no friends, or promising in reply to the playful +appeal of his female friends to be a good boy and not to give them any +more trouble, that it was no use trying. It was the women who stuck to +him alone, now and then suggesting lemonade, and then forcing him up on +deck with a view to a dance or a promenade. Some of the passengers +around, as tipsy as himself, interfered; one of them, evidently a +respectable tradesman, with his wife and children around, requesting the +widower to sing “John Barleycorn,” assuring him that as he had lost his +teeth it would have to be sung with a _false set oh_, a joke which the +widower could not see, and the explanation of which at one time seemed +about to end in a serious misunderstanding. Other parties besides +interfered, and the confusion became hopeless and inexplicable. It ended +in the weeping widower wildly embracing the female with the baby, and +then making a mad rush on deck with a view to jump over—a feat, however, +which he was easily prevented from accomplishing; and as I landed I saw +the would-be suicide with his male and female friends contemplating a +visit to the nearest public-house. It was really a melancholy spectacle, +and one that ought not to have been permitted in the cabin of a saloon +steamer. Quite as pitiable in its way was the sight of a couple who had +unwarrantably intruded into that part of the steamer which is presumed to +be kept solely for the use of those who pay first-class fares. One of +them was indeed a study; he had been out for a day’s pleasure, and he +showed in his person traces of very severe enjoyment; his clothes had +been damaged in the process, and an eye had been brought into close +contact with some very hard substance, such as a man’s fist, and the +consequence was it was completely closed, and the skin around discoloured +and swollen. He had never, so he said, been so insulted in his life, and +once or twice he reascended the stairs with a short pipe in his hand, a +picture of tipsy gravity, in order that he might recognise the ticket +collector, with a view apparently to summon him before the Lord Mayor. +His companion was a more blackguard-looking object still. A couple of +the officers attached to the ship soon sent him forward, to mingle with a +lot of men as disgusting in appearance and as foul in language as +himself, but who had sense enough not to intrude where they had no right, +and to keep their proper places. And thus the hours passed, and the sun +sank lower in the horizon, and we rushed up the mighty river past +outward-bound steamers on their way to all quarters of the globe, and +found ourselves once more in town. The day had been a pleasant one had +it not been for the indulgence in bottled beer, which seems to be the +special need of all Londoners when they go up or down the river. If this +state of things is to be allowed, no decent person will be enabled to +take a passage on a river steamer on a St. Monday or a Saturday, +especially if he has ladies or children with him. It does seem hard that +people on board river steamers may drink to excess, and thus prove a +nuisance to all who are not as beery as themselves. It may be, however, +that the steam-packet companies promote this sale of intoxicating liquor +in order to promote the cause of true temperance; if so, one can +understand the unlimited activity of the ship stewards, as it becomes at +once apparent to the most superficial observer that he who tastes the +charmed cup has + + Lost his upright shape, + And downwards falls into a grovelling swine. + +If anyone doubts this let him proceed to Sheerness in a river steamer on +a people’s day. + + + + +XI.—STREET SALESMEN. + + +That we are a nation of shopkeepers I believe, not only on the evidence +of the first Napoleon, but from what I see and hear every day. There are +few people in the City who are born wealthy, compared with the number who +do manage in the course of a successful mercantile career to win for +themselves a fair share of this world’s goods. The other night I was +spending the evening at the West-End mansion of a City millionaire. As I +left, I asked a friend what was the secret of our host’s success, “Why,” +was the answer, “I have always understood he began life with borrowing +ten shillings.” + +If that is all, thought I to myself, it is not difficult to make a +fortune, after all. Accordingly, I negotiated a loan of a sovereign, +thinking that if I failed with ten shillings I should be sure to succeed +with double that number. At present, I regret to say, the loan has not +been so successful in its results as I anticipated, and fortune seems as +far off as ever. Should it turn out otherwise, and my wild expectations +be realised, I will publish a book, and let the reader know how a +sovereign became ten thousand pounds. And yet I believe such a feat has +been often accomplished in the City and by City men. Everybody knows a +man who walked up to town with twopence-halfpenny in his pocket, who +lived to enjoy a nice fortune himself, and to leave his wife and family +well provided for. + +I met the other day in the Gray’s Inn Road a master-builder, who told me +that he was going to retire from business and pass the evening of his +days in quiet. I had known the man since he was a boy. I knew his +father and his mother and all his family. If ever a fellow had a chance +of going to the bad that poor boy had. His father was a drunkard; the +poverty of the family was extreme; of schooling he had none whatever; yet +he left the little village in Suffolk where he was born, resolved, as he +told me, to be either a man or a mouse; and fortune favoured him beyond +his most sanguine expectations. Yes, the streets of London _are_ paved +with gold, but it is not everyone who has sense to see it or strength to +pick it up. + +It is to be feared the large class who come into the streets to deal are +not of the class who mean to rise, but who have seen better days. For +instance, I often meet a porter selling Persian sherbet in the City, who +seems to have dropped into that situation from mere laziness. He had a +fair chance of getting on in life, but he never seems to have had pluck +enough to succeed. Another man I know held a respectable situation as +clerk; he appeared to me economical in his habits, he was always neatly +dressed, he was never the worse for liquor, nor did he seem to keep bad +company. All at once he left his situation, and rapidly went to the +dogs. For a little while he borrowed of his friends; but that was a +precarious source of existence, and now he may be seen dealing in small +articles, on which it is to be hoped for his own sake the profits are +large, as I fear the demand for them is small. Then there are the +restless characters who take up street-selling partly because they like +to gammon the public, partly because they dislike steady industry, and +partly because I fancy they cherish expectations of another sort. These +are the men who give away gold rings, who exhibit mice that have a +wonderful way of running up and down the arms, who sell gutta-percha +dolls which seem in their hands to have a power of vocalisation which +leaves them at once and for ever as soon as you have purchased the puppet +and paid for it and made it your own, who deal in cement which will make +an old jug better than new, who retail corn-plasters which are an +inevitable cure, and who occasionally deal in powders which are a sure +means of getting rid of certain objectionable specimens of the insect +tribe. + +“But how do you use the powder?” asked a flat of a countryman who had +been deluded into the purchase of sixpenny-worth of the invaluable +powder. “How do you use it?” repeated the purchaser. + +“Well, you see, you catch the animal and hold him by the back of the +neck, and then when his mouth opens, just shove in the powder, and he’ll +die fast enough.” + +“But,” said the countryman, “I suppose I could kill the insect at once +when I’ve caught him?” + +“Well,” said the salesman, “of course you can, but the powder is, I +repeat, fatal nevertheless.” + +A little while ago there was an illustrated paper presumedly more fitted +for the moral atmosphere of New York than London. Its chief sale, before +it was suppressed by the law, was in the streets, where, with its +doubtful engravings, it was a bit of a nuisance. Of course, the sale of +Evening _Hechoes_, and _H_extra _Standards_, is a thing one is obliged to +put up with; nevertheless, one must often regret that so useful a trade +cannot be pushed in a quieter and less ostentatious way. The ingenious +youth, who devote themselves to the sale of a paper especially devoted to +the interests of matrimony, are a real nuisance. How they pester many a +lad that passes with their intimation that, by the purchase of their +trumpery paper, they can secure an heiress with a thousand a year, as if +such bargains were to be had any day, whereas, the truth is, that they +are rather scarce, and that—whether with that sum or without—matrimony is +a very serious affair. Unprotected females have to suffer a deal of +impudence from these fellows. I saw a respectable, decently-dressed, +manifest old maid, exceedingly annoyed and shocked by one of these +fellows pursuing her half way up Cheapside, with his shouts, “Want a +’usband, ma’am?” “Here’s a chance for you, ma’am,” “Lots of ’usbands to +be had,” and so on, in a way which she seemed to feel—and I quite +understood her feelings—was singularly indelicate. What an insult to +suppose that any virtuous and accomplished lady is in seed of a husband, +when she has only to raise a finger and she has, such is the chivalry of +the age, a score of adorers at her feet! + +The newsboys are, of course, the most prominent of our street salesmen, +and they affect the City for many reasons. In the first place, in and +around the Mansion House there is a finer opening for business than +anywhere else; and in the second place, a City business is often a very +remunerative one. City men who have made their thousands on the Stock +Exchange or elsewhere are not particular in the matter of change; and a +fourpence or a sixpence is often the reward of the lad who is the first +to rush up to a City swell as he leaves his office with a “third hedition +of the _Hecho_” or a special _Standard_ with some important telegram. In +wet weather times go very hard with these poor fellows. On the contrary, +when it is fine, business is brisk. They rely much on sensational +telegrams. A war is a fine thing for them, and so is a case like that of +the Claimant, or a spicy divorce case, or an atrocious murder. It is +when such things as these occur that they flourish, and that their joy is +abounding. They must make a good deal of money, but it goes as fast as +it comes. An attempt was made to establish a news-room for these boys, +and very nice premises were taken in Gray’s Inn Lane. The coffee and +bread and butter were excellent, and the arrangements were all that could +be desired. Nevertheless the undertaking was a failure, because it was +not supported by the class for whose benefit it was especially intended. +The news-boys did not like the confinement, the regular hours, the decent +behaviour, the cleanliness and attention to little things required. They +wanted beer and ’baccy, and other little amusements, more in accordance +with their independent position in fife. As a rule I fancy they are +honest; they certainly never cheat a man if they think they will be found +out. I never had any difficulty in getting my change but once, and then +I was in an omnibus, and the chances were in the boy’s favour. What is +wonderful is that they do not meet with more accidents. How they rush +after omnibuses as they urge on their wild career! Some of them are +great radicals. “Allus reads _The Hecho_ of a Saturday,” said one of +them to me, “to see how it pitches into the haristocracy,” when the +articles signed “NOBLESSE OBLIGE” were being published. It is to be +wondered at now and then that their impertinence does not get them into +grief. For instance, to the young man who has any respect for the fair +sex, how disgusting to be told of women, good-looking, amiable and +accomplished, well-to-do, and apparently possessed of every virtue under +heaven, advertising for husbands. I suppose _The Matrimonial __News_ is +a success; but, if so, certainly that is not a pleasant sign of the +times. If people will buy it, the newsboys are not to be blamed for +hawking it about. They take up what they think the public will buy. +Last year they were retailing “The Devil,” price one penny, and this year +they have taken up _Town Talk_, and an ingenious puzzle, called, “How to +find out Lord Beaconsfield.” I wonder some of our publishers of real +good illustrated literature do not try to push the sale of it in this +way. I think it would pay. The public would then have the bane and the +antidote side by side. Mr. Smithies might do much to increase the sale +of _The British Workman_ if he had it hawked about the streets. + +As to the costermongers, their name is legion; and that they are a real +service to the community must be evident to anyone who sees what their +prices are and what are those of the fruiterers in the shops. They bring +fruit within the reach of the community. In the summer-time we naturally +require fruit. It is good for grown-up men and women, it is good for +little children. In London they have no chance of tasting it were it not +for the costermonger who floods the streets with all that is desirable in +this respect; one day he has West India pineapples for sale; another +bananas or shaddocks; another grapes, and apples, and pears, and +apricots, and greengages, and plums. One day he deals in strawberries +and another in cherries; and then, when the autumn comes on, what a +tempting display he makes of filberts, and walnuts, and chestnuts! The +amount of fruit thus poured in upon the market, much of which would have +perished had it not been sold off at once, is really prodigious; and +infinitely indebted to him are the poor clerks who lay in a pennyworth of +apples or pears as they leave the office for the little ones at home. At +one time I had a prejudice against these rough and noisy dealers; that +prejudice has vanished since I have taken to dining in the City and +indulging in “a penny lot” after dinner. What I admire is the way in +which they do up strawberries, and cherries, and plums in little paper +bags, which seem to contain as much again as they really do. +Occasionally a man gets cheated, but that is when there is a woman in the +case. + +Oh, the flower-girls of the streets, what deceiving creatures they are! +It is not that, like the flower-girls of Paris, they spoil a romance with +pecuniary views, but it is that they cheat you through thick and thin, +and sell you camellias made of turnips, and roses and azaleas equally +fair to see and equally false and vain. Can I ever forget my friend Dr. +R. and the little mishap that befell him when he assisted at a little +dinner—at which I had the honour to be a guest—given by a Scotch poet to +Scotch poets, and press-men, and barristers, in honour of the immortal +Robert Burns? Crossing by the Mansion House, in the dim light of a +winter evening, the doctor was accosted by a handsome lass, who offered +to sell him a camellia. The lady pressed her suit, and the doctor fell. +Granite in the discharge of duty, the doctor has a soft place in his +heart, and that woman finds out at once. It is the old tale—the woman +tempted and the doctor gave way. As he came proud and smiling into the +drawing-room, the splendour of the doctor’s camellia arrested every eye. +A near scrutiny was the result, and at length the doctor had to confess +that he had been the victim of misplaced confidence in a London street +flower-girl. + +Then there are the men who deal in what they call pineapple sweetmeat; +their barrows are adorned with paintings representing dimly the riches +and luxuriance of the East. + +Sunday brings with it its own peculiar dealers and trades. One of the +sights of poor neighbourhoods is that of a large barrel, painted red, on +wheels. At the top is a seat for the driver; at the other end there is a +small shelf on which are placed a tray of water and a row of glasses. +Some of these glasses look like porter with a head, and are retailed at +prices varying from a penny to twopence. Outside, in great gilt letters, +I read, “The Great Blood Purifier;” then we have another line, +“Sarsaparilla, Hilder, King’s Road, Chelsea.” Another line is devoted to +the announcement of “Dandelion and Sarsaparilla Pills.” Another +intimates that sarsaparilla is the “Elixir of Life.” At the back, the +door over the shelf contains a portrait of apparently a fine gay person, +female of course, who has received signal benefit from the ardour with +which she has swallowed the dandelion and sarsaparilla pills; and around +her, as witnesses and approvers of such conduct on her part, shines a row +of stars. The salesman is assisted by a small boy, who washes the +glasses and places them on the rack, and in other ways makes himself +generally useful. The salesman is by no means guilty of the trick of +underrating his wares. Accordingly, he lifts up his voice like a trumpet +as he deals out his pennyworths of the Elixir of Life. In some cases he +is familiar, in others argumentative, in others bold as brass; and he +gets a good many customers. The race of fools who rush in where angels +fear to tread is by no means extinct. As I watched the poor skinny +quadruped, groggy and footsore, I felt how hard it was that Sunday should +shine no day of rest for him; but he had a good deal more go in him than +you would have imagined from his appearance. All at once in the far +distance appeared two respected members of the City police; the gentleman +with the Elixir of Life closed his door, jumped up into his seat, pulled +his small boy up after him, and was off like lightening. This Arab steed +could run after him. + + + + +XII.—CITY NUISANCES. + + +There are some people who are always grumbling. Hit them high or hit +them low, you can’t please them. I don’t think I belong to that class. +I like to look on the sunny side, remembering as the poet used to say +when I was a good deal younger than I am now— + + ’Tis wiser, better far. + +In the words of a still greater poet— + + I take the goods the gods provide me. + +And if the lovely Thais sits beside me, provided she does not lay a +stress upon my head and purse (I am a married man, and the father of a +family, and always hope to behave as such), I don’t object. He is not a +wise man who quarrels with his bread and butter; he is a fool who expects +to find no thorns amongst his roses. What I have gone through, dear +madam—for it is to the ladies I appeal—what I have gone through, dear +madam, is really astounding, at any rate to myself. How I have survived +at all is “one of those things no fellah can understand.” Repeatedly +ruin has stared me in the face. Repeatedly have my young affections run +to waste. Repeatedly have I been crossed in love, and tramped up and +down Cheapside and Fleet Street, a blighted being. At this very moment, +if I may trust to my medical knowledge, I am now suffering from three +distinct diseases, any one of which is mortal; and yet if you were to +meet me in the street, or have a chat with me in a quiet café over a +cigar, or sit next me at a City dinner, you would swear that I was one of +those old fogies whom nothing troubles, without nerves or feelings, who +vegetated rather than lived in the little tragi-comedy we call life. It +may be that little personal details are uninteresting. I admit they are +not matters of transcendent importance. You do not need master them if +you are going up for your degree, or going in for a Civil Service +examination. I mention these merely to show that I can put up with a +good deal—that I am not easily put out of the way; and that I should be +one of the last persons in the world to call anything a nuisance, unless +it were really such. Under these circumstances, I may claim a right to +be heard; and, when I state that I have no private aim, that, laying my +hand upon my heart, my only motive is the public good, I believe that I +shall not lift up my voice in vain. + +Well, to waste no more words about it, of the nuisances of London it may +be said their name is legion. In the first place, there are the streets. +If you get out at Farringdon Street Station, and walk towards the Holborn +Viaduct, it is of little use your having had your boots cleaned that +morning—a little shower of rain, and the pavement is covered with mud. +This ought not to be. Let us take another nuisance. All at once, as you +walk along, you see a chimney vomiting forth clouds of smoke. This is a +great nuisance, especially on a fine summer day, when the atmosphere of +the City may be said to be almost clear; and this nuisance is the more +unbearable as there is a law to put it down, which law is actually to a +certain extent carried out. Let anyone take his stand on some spot where +he can get a good view around him, and he will be sure to see some +chimney, in spite of the law, darkening the sky and poisoning the air. +Then there is the orange-peel, which has shortened many a valuable life, +and quenched the light of many a home. Then there is the crowded traffic +of the streets, which renders all locomotion impossible, and keeps you +sitting, angry and fuming, in a cab, when it may be you are hurrying off +to save a bill from being dishonoured, to keep an appointment with a rich +aunt or uncle from whom you have great expectations, to have a last fond +look at someone whom you dearly love. As to the disputed points as to +the pavements, I have nothing to offer. To those who have to live and +sleep in the City, asphalte, I should say, must be the greatest boon +devised by the art of man. With asphalte you may talk pleasantly to a +friend in Cheapside, you may get a reasonable night’s sleep in St. Paul’s +Churchyard, or you may crack a joke without bursting a blood-vessel +opposite the Mansion House itself. Be that as it may, as the question as +to the comparative merits of asphalte, or granite, or wood will be +settled by wiser heads than mine, I say no more; but what I complain of, +and what is a nuisance to everyone, is the perpetual tinkering and +repairing always going on in the streets, and the consequent blockade for +a time of certain important thoroughfares. What with the drainage, and +the water, and the gas pipes, and the telegraph wires, there is in most +of the City ways as much bustle almost under the street as on it, and an +ominous board with a notice from the Lord Mayor turns aside a tremendous +traffic, and is a terrible nuisance as long as it lasts. Surely this +waste of time and annoyance is, a great deal of it, unnecessary. All +that is wanted is a little more contrivance and forethought. I was once +discussing the subject with a leading City man and an M.P., as we were +travelling together in a railway carriage on our way to a pleasant +gathering of City people many miles away beyond the sound of Bow Bells. +“Well,” said he, with a suggestive wink, “the thing is easily explained; +the rule is, for the surveyor’s son to marry the contractor’s daughter, +or something of that sort, and so between them they manage to play into +each other’s hands, and always have done so.” Of course the M.P. was +joking. No one could conceive it possible that our civic guardians, our +common councilmen, our aldermen, our City officers, would allow +themselves to be imposed on, and the public to be robbed in this way; +but, alas! it is a pity that there should be ground for such a joke, that +it should seem in any way to be founded on a fact. We are not so bad as +we were, I admit, but that is no reason why we should not be better. +Even now there are parts of London to which Gay’s lines are applicable +when he writes: + +Though expedition bids, yet never stray +Where no ranged post defends the rugged way; +Here laden carts with thundering waggons meet, +Wheels clash with wheels, and bar the narrow street, +The lashing whip resounds, the horses strain, +And blood in anguish bursts the swelling vein. + +Something like this may be met with any day when the stones are greasy on +Fish Street Hill, as the waggons turn up from Thames Street laden with +the heavy merchandise of that quarter of the town. As I have quoted Gay, +let me give another quotation from him. In one of his fables he writes: + + How many saucy airs we meet + From Temple Bar to Aldgate Street. + Proud rogues who shared the South Sea prey, + And spring like mushrooms in a day, + They think it mean to condescend + To know a brother or a friend. + They blush to hear their mother’s name, + And by their pride expose their shame. + +There are just such men as Gay wrote of to be met in our streets, and +they are a nuisance, but the law of libel, in the interest of rogues who +live by getting up bubble companies, is hard on the press, and I prefer +to quote Gay to making original remarks of my own, remarks which may be +true, which may be useful, but for which the proprietor of any paper that +would publish them would have to pay heavily, at any rate in the way of +costs. + +Later in the day, one of the nuisances in the streets is “Those horrid +boys.” They have come home from work, or school; they have had their +tea, it is too early for them to go to bed, their fathers and mothers +don’t know what to do with them at home, and so they loiter about the +streets, and carry on their little games in them, much to their own +satisfaction, but very much to the annoyance of everyone else. One of +their favourite amusements is to run in groups, like so many wild Indians +or a pack of wolves, howling and shrieking in a way very alarming. It is +no use talking to them. It is no use putting the police on after them. +The belated citizen, on his way home to the inevitable suburb, is +frightened into fits ere he reaches his much-hoped-for haven of rest. +And the small shopkeepers in the quiet streets—which they more especially +affect—in terror rush to the door, believing either that there is a fire, +or that Bedlam has broken loose, or that the Fenians have come. In some +parts, as in Whitechapel, the wild girls of the streets are even worse. + +There are many local nuisances in London; one of the chief of these is +the conduct of the watermen about the landing-places near the Custom +House. Females and foreigners, who have to take boats to the large +steamers lying in the river, are frightfully plundered in this way. +These men feel that they can rob you with impunity, and they abuse their +privileges. + +“Ah,” said one, after he had squeezed a five-shilling piece out of a poor +foreigner for rowing him a few yards, “I’ll put up with it this time, but +don’t do it again,” as if he, the boatman, and not the poor foreigner, +had been the victim of a most atrocious fraud. Such fellows as these +should be kept honest somehow. Who does not recollect that chapter in +“Vilette,” in which Charlotte Brontë has recorded her waterside +experiences? How she was landed by the coachman in the midst of a throng +of watermen, who gathered around her like wolves; how she stepped at once +into a boat, desiring to be taken to the _Vivid_; how she was fleeced by +the waterman, as she paid an exorbitant sum, as the steward, a young man, +was looking over the ship’s side, grinning a smile in anticipation of the +row there would have been had she refused to pay. I had an experience +somewhat similar myself. Perhaps I got off easily. In those dark +wharves on that black river, here and there lit by a distant and +dimly-burning lamp—at that midnight hour, when all good people are in +bed, it is well that there is nothing going on worse than robbery in such +a mild form. Had I been dropped overboard, I am sure few people would +have known it; and I am not certain that I have no reason to be grateful +to the lot amongst whom I found myself that they attempted nothing of the +kind. Late at night there are many dark and lonely spots in the City +suggestive of dark deeds. In some one walks with fear and trembling. +Suspicious people have a knack of turning up in such dark places; and the +police can’t be everywhere. + +Then there is the water supply. It is all very well to have a spirited +foreign policy abroad, but we do want a little common sense at home; and +the sanitary state of the nation is of the first importance. You cannot +blame a man that he refuses to drink bad water, and takes beer instead; +and if anything be clearer than another, it is that the water supplied to +the working man is bad; for whilst the rich man can have his cisterns +regularly cleaned out, and his water filtered, the working man, as a +rule, uses the water as he can get it, and suffers in consequence, both +in person and in pocket. Under the influence of this state of things, it +is not surprising to find mothers refusing to allow their children to +drink water on the plea that it is bad for their health. Nor are these +mothers to be blamed. It is a fact that in England and Wales alone +upwards of eight hundred persons die every month from typhoid fever; a +disease which is now believed to be caused almost entirely through +drinking impure water. It is a fact that in London we have little pure +water to drink, the companies are put to a great expense to filter their +water, and yet every week we read such reports as the following from Dr. +Frankland, the official to whom is entrusted the analysing of such +matters: “The Thames water, delivered by the West Middlesex, Southwark, +and Grand Junction Companies, was so much polluted by organic matter as +to be quite unfit for dietetic purposes.” The other day I had to pay my +water rates; imagine my disgust at having to do so when the Government +inspector in the daily papers informed me that the water supplied by the +company was totally unfit for dietetic purposes! The evil is no new one. +It has been ventilated in every way; and yet in London, the wealthiest +city in the world, we cannot get a cup of pure water. People can have it +in Manchester and Glasgow and New York; but in London—which claims to be +the capital of commerce, the seat of Legislation, the model city—we have +poison in the cup—as science tells us that we cannot take with impunity +the living organisms and fungoid growths with which London water more or +less abounds. Lately the working men met at Exeter Hall to say that it +was time to put a stop to this disgraceful state of things. As Cardinal +Manning said, if they wanted to give a subject the slip, the proper way +was to get a committee of inquiry, and if they wanted to bury it +altogether the right thing to do was to have a Royal Commission. Action +is what is wanted. There are ten Parliamentary boroughs, and it was +proposed to hold public meetings in each of them, to form a central +committee, and thus to create a public pressure to which Parliament would +have to give way. As it is, as Sir Charles Dilke pointed out, we have +eight water companies in London who have increased the cost of water all +round without improving the quality. What is to be asked is, that a body +of men be formed in London to have the care of the water supply; and, as +Mr. J. Holms, M.P., pointed out, the sooner this is done the better, as +every year the companies’ properties increase in value, and there will +have to be paid to them additional compensation. The importance of the +subject was, perhaps, most pointedly brought out by Dr. Lyon Playfair, +who argued that, as in each average individual there were 98 lb. of water +to 40 lb. of flesh and bone, he calculated that there were before him at +that time as many as 25,000 gallons of water; and if that water was +impure it must vitiate the blood and lower the health of all. We must +have, he said, a good supply of water, pure at the source. We must have +good receptacles for storing it, and we must have a constant system of +supply. + +What great events from little causes spring! Last year a gentleman was +run over by a butcher’s cart through the careless driving of the butcher; +and finding that accidents of that nature were of frequent occurrence and +were increasing, he, with other gentlemen, obtained a return of the +number of accidents from Sir Edmund Henderson, the chief of the +Metropolitan Police, which showed that, in 1878, 124 persons were killed +and 3,052 run over in the Metropolitan districts. But this is not all. +The return only showed such accidents as came under the knowledge of the +Metropolitan police. Accordingly application was made to the +Registrar-General of Deaths, and from him it was ascertained that 237 +persons were killed by vehicles and 3,399 run over during that year in +and around London; and hence the formation of the society for the +prevention of street accidents. Further researches made by the secretary +among the London hospitals resulted in learning that run-over cases +formed the most common class of accidents. The house surgeon of the +principal hospital wrote that he computed there was an average of thirty +“run-over” cases a week brought there for treatment, which, in that one +hospital alone, would make 930 accidents attended to there yearly. The +result of the society’s operations are satisfactory. At any rate this +year the returns show one death less, and a falling off in run-over cases +to the number of 517. Such decrease the society claims to be the result +of its labours, on the ground that every year during the last ten years +has showed an increase of six per cent. If this be so, it was well that +the secretary was run over, especially as apparently he was not much hurt +by the operation. Physically he is as fine a man as you would wish to +see; and though undoubtedly the sensation at the time was not an +agreeable one, yet, if it has led to the reduction of street accidents, +how much cause have we to rejoice. It seems almost as if Mr. Buckle were +right when he questions the beneficial effect of morality on national +progress. At any rate, if I were a lover of paradox I would quote +Mandeville to show how private vices become public benefits. A butcher +boy recklessly ran over Mr. Keevil, and the result is a decrease of +street accidents and mortality. Statues have been erected to men who +have less benefited the public than that butcher boy. + +But accidents will happen, and I fear, as the Lord Mayor truly said at +the first annual meeting of the society held in the Egyptian Hall of the +Mansion House, it is to be feared most of them are really accidents, that +is, things that cannot be prevented. The society aims to prevent +accidents by enforcing existing laws; by petitioning Parliament to amend +them; by prosecuting offenders for furious driving; by granting donations +or loans to sufferers; by compulsory carriage of a lamp on all vehicles, +trimmed and lighted after sunset; by compulsory use of brake-power; and +by stationing the society’s mounted and other officers in the leading +thoroughfares of the metropolis, and other towns, to check and pursue +offenders, and to enforce the claims of the society. At its first +meeting we had an array of elderly peers and distinguished persons, that +was really overpowering. One reverend speaker looked quite pathetic, as, +with an arm in a sling, he narrated how he had been the victim of a +street accident. Let it not be thought that I am inclined to write of +the reverend gentleman and the society with levity. I, too, have +suffered. The other night in the fog, in a street-crossing, I +experienced a disagreeable sensation on the side of my head—which +fortunately nature has made thick enough for ordinary wear and tear—and +in the gloaming found that a cab had driven up against me. Fortunately, +I escaped with a slight contusion, but it would have been a sad thing for +my small home circle had it been a serious matter. Alas! to men every +day accidents occur that are serious; and there are women white with +terror, and children struck dumb with an undefined sense of impending +ill, as the news comes to them that the husband and father is in the +hospital. Sometimes the agony is prolonged, as they do not even learn +that; and who can tell the bitterness as the weary hours of the night +pass away and the cold gray of morn reappears, as the watchful ear tries +to fancy in every sound of the passing footstep the return of one never +to come home more? By all means let us, if we can, prevent street +accidents. Life is not so bright, earth is not so full of joy, that we +may neglect, when an opportunity occurs, to save one breaking heart, to +prevent one solitary tear. + +Sir Arthur Helps, just before his death, published another of his popular +volumes, “Friends in Council,” in which certain friends—men of the world +and of high position—are supposed to discuss the several problems of the +day. The scene is laid in a villa on the banks of the Thames. The host +is Sir John Ellesmere—not Mr. Milverton. The subject is “Social +Pressure,” a subject which may certainly be said to come home to our +businesses and bosoms. The aim of all the speeches is how we are to be +comfortable; and, as citizens of this great city, as was to be expected, +London occupies the chief place in their thoughts, is referred to in all +the arguments—in short, points the moral and adorns the tale. Milverton +reads an essay on the subject, which lays it down as an indisputable +truth that one of the greatest evils of modern life is the existence of +great towns. The metropolis is pointed out as an illustration. First we +are told the loss of animal power is enormous. Four or five hundred +horses are carried to the knacker’s yard each week in London. After a +day’s business it is a pleasure to take a walk in the country; but, it is +asked, Who can do that in London, where there are, in several directions, +ten continuous miles of houses? Then, as to the pleasures of society, +these are destroyed by the immense extent of the metropolis. Even the +largest houses are not, relatively speaking, large enough for the town in +which they are situated. As regards questions of health, Dr. Arnott, +whom Sir Arthur terms one of the greatest sanitary reformers of the age, +remarked that though London is a place where the rate of mortality is not +exceedingly high, yet it is a place where nobody except butchers’ boys +enjoy perfect health—the full state of health that they are capable of +enjoying. + +In spite of the somewhat extreme notions of the “Friends,” who seem to +forget that men are driven into cities by the necessity which compels +most of them to earn their daily bread, it must be admitted that in the +question of air they have hit a blot. The first article of food, namely, +fresh air, is that which is least under the command of man. Mr. +Milverton says there is no danger of London being starved for want of +animal food. There is more and more danger every year of its health +being diminished from the want of a supply of fresh air. It is stated, +in confirmation of this fact, that every year the hospital surgeons in +London find it more difficult to cure wounds and injuries of all kinds to +the human body, on account, it is supposed, of the growing impurity of +the London air. This bad air kills off the cows. A London cow does not +last a third part of the time one does in the country. On this head much +more might have been said. The author might have referred to the +mournful fate of the fine cattle, who, recently, on the field of their +triumph, the Smithfield Club Show, found, not laurels and rewards, but a +grave, in consequence of the fog. We read that that famous man, Count +Rumford, used to estimate the number of millions of chaldrons of coals +which were suspended in the atmosphere of London, and to dwell upon the +mischief which was caused to furniture by the smoke when it descended. +But there are other special causes of injury, such as dust and chemical +emanations of all kinds. The result is that everything in such a city as +London soon loses all bloom and freshness, and, indeed, is rapidly +deteriorated. The more beautiful the thing, the more swift and fatal is +this deterioration. The essayist calculates the injury of property in +London, caused, not by reasonable wear and tear, but by the result of the +agglomeration of too many people upon one spot of ground, as not less +than three or four millions of pounds per annum. It is to be feared the +estimate is not exaggerated. + +There is a further illustration. Sir Rutherford Alcock, as we all know, +represented our interests in China. While there he visited the Chinese +Wall, and brought back two specimens from it in the way of bricks. These +bricks must have been many centuries old, but they had kept their form +and betrayed no signs of decay in that atmosphere. Sir Rutherford put +these two bricks out in the balcony of his house in London. This was +about two years ago. One of these bricks has already gone to pieces, +being entirely disintegrated by the corrosive influence of the London +atmosphere. + +In another way we also suffer. Certain kinds of architecture are out of +place in London, says our essayist: “All that is delicate and refined is +so soon blurred, defaced, and corroded by this cruel atmosphere, that it +is a mockery and a delusion to attempt fine work.” There ought to be a +peculiar kind of architecture for such a metropolis—large, coarse, and +massive, owning neither delicacy nor refinement, and not admitting minute +description of any kind. And, again, that coarse work requires to be +executed in the hardest material, otherwise the corrosion is so great as +to cause the need for constant repair. + +Another danger is pointed out in the following anecdote. At a former +time, when this country was threatened with an invasion of cholera, the +speaker (Milverton) was one of a committee of persons appointed by +Government supposed to have some skill in sanitary science. “We found,” +he remarks, “that a most deadly fever had originated from the premises of +one of the greatest vendors of oysters in the centre of the metropolis. +Attached to his premises there was a large subterranean place where he +deposited his oyster shells; this place was connected with the sewers. +The small portion of animal matter left in the under shells became +putrescent; and from the huge mass of them that had accumulated in that +subterranean place there finally arose a stench of the most horrible +nature, which came up through all the neighbouring gratings, and most +probably into some of the neighbouring houses.” + +My readers need not be alarmed. Such a nuisance would not be permitted +now; and as oysters are getting dearer and scarcer every day, it is to be +questioned whether these shells will be ever again in sufficient numbers +as to form a putrid and pernicious heap. But that the air is polluted by +noxious substances and trades is one of the greatest and most pressing +evils of the ever-threatening perils of such a Babylon as that in which +we live. We suggest, advisedly, the removal of all noxious trades from +London, in spite of all that the political economists can say to the +contrary. This, however, is of course but a small part of the question. +The main object is to see what can be done to render this vast +agglomeration of animate and inanimate beings less embarrassing and +injurious. The first thing that must occur to almost every mind is the +necessity for preserving open spaces, and even of creating them, a +necessity of which the Corporation of London is at any rate aware. + +There is more of novelty in the following: “Another evil of great towns +is noise. There is the common proverb that half the world does not know +how the other half lives, which, perhaps, would be a more effective +saying if the word ‘suffers’ were substituted for ‘lives.’ It is +probable that there is no form of human suffering which meets with less +sympathy or regard from those who do not suffer from it, than the +suffering caused by noise. The man of hard, healthy, well-strung nerves +can scarcely imagine the real distress which men of sensitive nerves +endure from ill-regulated noise—how they literally quiver and shiver +under it. Now, of course, the larger the town, the more varied and the +more abundant is the noise in it. Even the domestic noises are dreadful +to a man of acute nervous sensibility.” + +In the City we have done much to remove this evil. The asphalte pavement +has wrought wonders; the police have been also efficacious in putting a +stop to some of our roughest and most discordant cries; and yet there is +a volume of noise, ever rising up and filling the air, which must shorten +many a life, and which must be a permanent source of misery. There are +few of us who have not realised what Sir Arthur Helps describes as the +terrors and horrors of ill-regulated noise, or have not wondered that so +much intellectual work is done so well as it is in these great cities. +Now that Sir Arthur has called attention to the subject, it may be other +people will think it worth consideration. + +Damascus and Babylon are referred to for the purpose of drawing a +comparison to the disadvantage of London. Babylon, we are told, had in +its densest parts what is deficient in London. Babylon contained within +its walls land sufficient for agricultural purposes, to enable the +inhabitants of the city to be fed by those resources during a siege. +Well, of course, that is quite out of question as regards London. Then +comes Damascus, which, “from the presence of large gardens, forms a most +pleasing contrast to London and other large cities;” but Damascus has the +plague, and that London, with all its magnitude, escapes. Then we are +told London is built so badly that were it to be abandoned by its +population it would fall during that time into a state of ruin which +would astonish the world. This, it is to be feared, is true of the +suburbs, where builders are allowed to scamp their work just as they +please, but certainly cannot be said of the City, where there is proper +superintendence and most vigilant care. Another evil to which the +“Friends” refer, is the absence of raised buildings, partially covered +in, which should enable those in the neighbourhood to take exercise with +freedom both from bitter winds and driving rains; in fact, an elevated +kind of cloister—where it is suggested recreation and amusement might be +provided, especially of a musical kind. It is to be feared space is too +valuable for this in the City; and, until our roughs are educated under +the new School Board, we know no part of the metropolis where such a +thing is practicable, even though, as hinted, the attractions of such a +place would counteract those of the gin palace. There was a Piazza in +Regent Street, which was removed on account of the shelter it gave to +improper characters. One suggestion is made, which is really +practicable, and which would be a great boon to Londoners. Ellesmere +wishes that he were a Lord of the Woods and Forests, as, if he were, he +would add to Kew Gardens the eight hundred acres now lying waste between +them and Richmond; he wants a vegetable-garden there, and a +recreation-ground for the people, and the ground, he argues, is admirably +adapted for such purposes. + +Ah! these poor Londoners. They fare but poorly at the hands of the +“Council.” “Hail a cab in any part of London where there is a large +stream of passers-by, you will observe that several grown-up persons and +a large number of boys will stop to see you get in the cab. That very +commonplace transaction has some charm for them—their days being passed +in such continuous dulness.” Thus, says one speaker: “At Dresden or +Munich, on their holidays, the whole population flock out to some +beautiful garden a mile or two from the town, hear good music, imbibe +fresh air, and spend only a few pence in those humble but complete +pleasures;” and then this picture is contrasted with that of the head of +the family here, who spends his holiday at the neighbouring gin-palace +round the corner. Certainly this is a very unfair comparison, as anyone +knows who visits our public gardens and parks and health resorts on the +occasion of a national holiday. There is another picture, which it is to +be feared is more common. It tells of a sanitary reformer who noticed +how a young woman who had come from the country and was living in some +miserable city-court or alley, made, for a time, great efforts to keep +that court or alley clean. But gradually, day by day, the efforts of +that poor woman were less and less vigorous, until in a few weeks she +became accustomed to and contented with the state of squalor which +surrounded her, and made no effort to remove it. It is true, as +Milverton remarks: “We in London subside into living contentedly amidst +dirt, and seeing our books, our pictures, our other works of art, and our +furniture become daily more dirty, dusty, and degenerate.” + +Our grandfathers lived in the City, and were glad to do so. It is a pity +one has to waste so much time travelling backward and forward between +one’s shop and country house, and office and one’s home, but if you can’t +get fresh air in the City—if you can’t rear children in its atmosphere—if +its soot is fatal to your health—if its fogs carry one off to a premature +grave—if its noises wear out your nerves—one has no alternative. Is it a +dream to look forward to a time when beggars and rogues shall disappear +from its streets—when it shall be the home of a peaceful, virtuous, and +enlightened community—when in the summer-time as you look up you will be +able to see the sun—when you will be able to drink pure water—when, +within the sound of Bow Bells, you shall be able to live to a good old +age—and when, on the Sabbath, its churches and chapels, now empty of +worshippers, shall be filled with devout men and women? Or is it to go +on daily becoming more gorgeous to the eye and more desolate to the +heart? Alas! it seems nothing but a deluge can save the City, and as +much now as ever the wearied citizen will have to sing: + + Oh, well may poets make a fuss + In summer time, and sigh _O rus_. + +And ask, + + What joy have I in June’s return? + My feet are parched; my eyeballs burn; + I scent no flowery gust. + But faint the flagging Zephyr springs, + With dry Macadam on its wings, + And turns me dust to dust. + + + + +XIII.—OUT OF GAOL. + + +“Shall I wait to bring you back, sir?” said a cabman to me the other +morning, as he landed me at an early hour before the gloomy pile, which +has hitherto been known as the Middlesex House of Correction, placed, as +my readers may know well, on Mount Pleasant, just out of Gray’s Inn Road. +On a dull, dreary morning, it is anything but pleasant, that Mount, in +spite of its name, and yet I dismissed the cabman and got out into the +street, not to enjoy the view, or to inhale the raw fog, which threw a +misty gloom over everything, nor even to admire the architecture of the +substantial plain brick-wall-order of the building, which, erected in +1794, and greatly enlarged since, occupies no less than nine acres, and +was devoted to the maintenance of a thousand male persons belonging to +the small but thickly-inhabited county of Middlesex. Government, in its +wisdom, has altered all that, and it is not exactly clear to what +purposes the Middlesex House of Correction will be applied in the future, +or to whom it will belong. Imperialism requires centralisation, and thus +it is local government gradually disappears. + +But I am not standing out here in the raw gloomy November morning to +write a political disquisition which few will read, and which they will +forget the next minute, but I am come to see the prisoners released from +gaol. There is a little mob outside, who stand close, apparently to keep +each other warm, and who regard me evidently with not a little suspicion +as I light up a cigar to keep the cold out and prepare for the worst. +Every now and then a “Favourite” omnibus rumbles past with its load of +clerks and warehousemen to their places of business, while a perpetual +stream of pedestrians, aiming at the same destination, passes on. +Evidently, they regard us with pity, and one sees that in the casual +glance, even if there be no language escaping from the lips. It does not +seem to me that we are a very showy lot. A little way off a dark and +dingy brougham drives up as if it were ashamed of the job and only put in +an appearance under protest, as it were; but all around me are wretchedly +poor, and chiefly of the costermonger class, whose language is more +expressive than refined. There are sorrowful women in the group—mothers +who have come for sons who have been, not to put too fine a point on it, +unfortunate; wives with babies in their arms, perhaps born since the +husband was in “trouble,” and sisters who wait to take their brothers +where they can have something better than prison fare and a lighter life +than that which exists within the four walls of a prison. Some of the +women are to be pitied—one, in a widow’s garb, with a tear-stained face, +particularly attracts my attention. She has brought all her family with +her as she comes to take back from the hands of justice her erring son, +who, let us hope, may yet live to be a comfort to the poor mother, who +evidently needs it so much; and who, perhaps, reproaches herself that she +has been a little to blame in the matter. It is hard work to train up +young ones, whether they be rich or poor; but the children of the latter +in the filthy lodging-houses in low districts have little, alas! to lead +them right, and much in the way of precept and example to lead them +wrong. With Board schools to teach honesty is the best policy, we may +expect better things in the days to come; and, if that be done, I feel +certain the Board will have deserved well of the country; if it fails in +imparting that higher instruction which some of its leading members seem +to think the one thing needful, and to be gained for the poor man’s child +at any cost to the unfortunate ratepayer of the class immediately above. +But this is a digression—and it only helps to pass away the time which +here this cold, raw morning appears to have quite forgotten to fly. It +seems to me an age since I heard the neighbouring chimes indicate that it +was a quarter to nine, and now at length they strike nine, and still the +big gates are closed, and we are silent with expectation—as if, at least, +we expected the arrival of a Lord Mayor or a Prince of Wales. A few +policemen have now come up to keep the crowd back, whilst a quiet, +respectable, unassuming individual comes to the gate, ready to give each +prisoner a ticket to a little breakfast in a Mission Hall close by. Mr. +Wheatley, the individual referred to, has his heart in the work, and I +see he has friends and assistants in the crowd, such as Mr. Hatton, of +the Mission Hall in Wylde Street, and others. In a few minutes they will +be hard at work, for the big gates suddenly are wide apart, and a couple +of lads appear with a smile on their pale countenances, for they are +free. Face to face with the crowd outside they seem a little amazed, and +scarce know which way to turn. Mr. Wheatley gives them a card of +invitation, and Mr. Hatton and his friends outside follow it up with +pressing remarks, which lead them to march off to a neighbouring Mission +Hall. Again the doors are closed, and we are silent. Then the gates fly +apart, and out come two or three more, who seem to wish to slink away +without being remarked by anyone. However, a little pale-faced girl +cries, “Charley!” in a soft trembling voice, and Charley looks, and as +the girl leaves the rank he takes her hand, and goes his way rejoicing. +A big bullet-headed fellow has no cap as he comes out, and a friend in +the crowd chucks him one, which he puts on his head, and is soon lost to +sight. Another one appears at the gate, and a pal comes up to him, and +offers him a pipe, which he straightway begins to smoke, with a gusto +easier imagined than described. One old man as he hobbles out refuses +the proffered card, saying that he was quite wicked enough, and did not +want none of that. Evidently he is a hardened sinner, and I fear the +chaplain has found him rather a bad subject. One man, a bit of a wag, +creates a laugh, as, looking at the women in the crowd, he calls out, +“Come along, my dears,” and away he goes to his own place. + +Again there is another pause, and then a respectable-looking man makes +his appearance. Suddenly his wife clasps his hand, and leads him off. +There is irrepressible emotion in her face, though she does not say a +word, nor he either. It does not seem to me that he is a hardened +criminal, and he may yet retrieve the blot on his character. Order again +prevails, and a voice out of the middle of the gate asks if anyone is +waiting for Jones and Robinson. That means Jones and Robinson have +behaved well—have earned a little money, which is to be handed over to +their friends. And thus half an hour passes away, and as I look at the +crowd I see that it has partly changed, and is composed more of casual +street boys and pedestrians who have stopped to look. I miss almost all +the women who were there an hour ago, and most of the costermonger class +have disappeared, though a few still linger on. The voice from the +closed doors says that there are no more to come out to-day, and slowly +the crowd melts away. Some are evidently sad. They had expected a +father, a brother, a husband, and now they have to wait awhile. On our +right, as we make our way to Gray’s Inn Road, there is a little Mission +Hall, and I turn in. Already the place is full, and as the gas falls on +their faces as they devour the morning meal provided for them by Mr. +Hatton and his friends, it seems to me that I never saw a more +ill-favoured lot. There was not a pleasant face among them—not a man or +a lad that I would have cared to set to work in my garden or house; and +as to their poverty, that was indescribable. These are the men whom none +had come to meet—the waifs and strays, without money or friends or work, +with that defiant scowl which denotes how low the man has sunk, and how +little it matters to him whether he spend his days in the workhouse or +the gaol. Mr. Wheatley talks kindly to them, and after singing—not by +them, for they all sit glum and silent—Mr. Hatton prays, and the meeting +is over. A good many then come forward to sign the pledge, and I leave +them as they explain their position and their need. I see Mr. Wheatley +gives a few a trifle; but a trifle, alas! won’t keep a man in London long +out of gaol. + + + + +XIV.—IN A GIPSY CAMP. + + +The other day I was witness to a spectacle which made me feel a doubt as +to whether I was living in the nineteenth century. I was, as it were, +within the shadow of that mighty London where Royalty resides; where the +richest Church in Christendom rejoices in its abbey and cathedral, and +its hundreds of churches; where an enlightened and energetic Dissent has +not only planted its temples in every district, but has sent forth its +missionary agents into every land; where the fierce light of public +opinion, aided by a press which never slumbers, is a terror to them that +do evil, and a praise to them that do well; a city which we love to boast +heads the onward march of man; and yet the scene before me was as +intensely that of savage life as if I had been in a Zulu kraal, and +savage life destitute of all that lends it picturesque attractions or +ideal charms. I was standing in the midst of some twenty tents and vans, +inhabited by that wandering race of whose origin we know so little, and +of whose future we know less. The snow was on the ground, there was +frost in the very air. Within a few yards was a great Board school; +close by were factories and workshops, and the other concomitants of +organised industrial life. Yet in that small area the gipsies held +undisputed sway. In or about London there are, it is calculated, some +two thousand of these dwellers in tents. In all England there are some +twenty thousand of these sons of Ishmael, with hands against everyone, +or, perhaps, to put it more truly, with everyone’s hands against them. +In summer-time their lot is by no means to be envied; in winter their +state is deplorable indeed. + +We entered, Mr. George Smith and I, and were received as friends. Had I +gone by myself I question whether my reception would have been a pleasant +one. As gipsies pay no taxes they can keep any number of dogs, and these +dogs have a way of sniffing and snarling anything but agreeable to an +unbidden guest. The poor people complained to me that no one ever came +to see them. I should be surprised if anyone did; but Mr. George Smith, +of Coalville, is no common man; and having secured fair-play for the poor +children of the brick-fields—he himself was brought up in a +brick-yard—and for the poor and sadly-neglected inmates of the canal +boats, he has now turned his attention to the gipsies. His idea is—and +it is a good one—that an Act of Parliament should be passed for their +benefit, something similar to that he has been the means of carrying for +the canal and brick-field children. In a paper read before the Social +Science Congress at Manchester, Mr. Smith argued that all tents, shows, +caravans, auctioneer vans, and like places, used as dwellings, should be +registered and numbered, and under proper sanitary arrangements, with +sanitary inspectors and School Board officers in every town and village. +Thus in every district the children would have their names and attendance +registered in a book, which they could take with them from place to +place, and, when endorsed by the schoolmaster, it would show that the +children were attending school. In carrying out this idea, it is a pity +that Mr. Smith should have to bear all the burden. As it is, he has +suffered greatly in his pocket by his philanthropic effort. At one time +he had a well-paid situation, which he had to relinquish, as he declined +to keep silence when the wrongs of the children of the brick-yards were +to be proclaimed and redressed. He not only did this, but he parted with +what little property he had rather than the battle should be lost; and I +am glad to see that a George Smith Fund has been formed, of which Lord +Aberdeen is chairman; and as Mr. Smith is now without business or +occupation, or means of livelihood, if I had five pounds to spare—which, +alas! I have not—I know where it would go. As to the gipsies, they +evidently hail Mr. Smith as a friend in need and a friend indeed. + +It is no joke, going into a gipsy yard, and it is still less so when you +go down on your hands and knees and crawl into the gipsy’s wigwam; but +the worst of it is, when you have done so there is little to see after +all. In the middle, on a few bricks, is a stove or fireplace of some +kind. On the ground is a floor of wood-chips, or straw, or shavings, and +on this squat some two or three big, burly men, who make linen-pegs and +skewers, and mend chairs and various articles, the tribe, as they wander +along, seek to sell. The women are away, for it is they who bring the +grist to the mill, as they tell fortunes, or sell their wares, or follow +their doubtful trade; but the place swarms with children, and it was +wonderful to see with what avidity they stretched out the dirtiest little +hand imaginable as Mr. Smith prepared to distribute some sweets he had +brought with him for that purpose. As we entered, all the vans were shut +up, and the tents only were occupied, the vans being apparently deserted; +but presently a door was opened half-way, and out popped a little gipsy +head, with sparkling eyes and curly hair; and then another door opened, +and a similar spectacle was to be seen. Let us look into the van, about +the size of a tiny cabin, and chock full, in the first place, with a +cooking-stove; and then with shelves, with curtains, and some kind of +bedding, apparently not very clean, on which the family repose. It is a +piteous life, even at the best, in that van; even when the cooking-pot is +filled with something more savoury than cabbages or potatoes, the usual +fare; but the children seem happy, nevertheless, in their dirty rags, and +with their luxurious heads of curly hair. All of them are as ignorant as +Hottentots, and lead a life horrible to think of. I only saw one woman +in the camp, and I only saw her by uncovering the top and looking into +the tent in which she resides. She is terribly poor, she says, and +pleads earnestly for a few coppers; and I can well believe she wants +them, for in this England of ours, and especially in the outskirts of +London, the gipsy is not a little out of place. Around us are some +strapping girls, one with a wonderfully sweet smile on her face, who, if +they could be trained to domestic service, would have a far happier life +than they can ever hope to lead. The cold and wet seem to affect them +not, nor the poor diet, nor the smoke and bad air of their cabins, in +which they crowd, while the men lazily work, and the mothers are far +away. The leading lady in this camp is absent on business; but she is a +firm adherent of Mr. George Smith, and wishes to see the children +educated; and as she is a Lee, and Lee in gipsy annals takes the same +rank as a Norfolk Howard in aristocratic circles, that says a good deal; +but then, if you educate a gipsy girl, she will want to have her hands +and face, at any rate, clean; and a gipsy boy, when he learns to read, +will feel that he is born for a nobler end than to dwell in a stinking +wigwam, to lead a lawless life, to herd with questionable characters, and +to pick up a precarious existence at fairs and races; and our poets and +novelists and artists will not like that. However, just now, by means of +letters in the newspapers, and engravings in the illustrated journals, a +good deal of attention is paid to the gipsies, and if they can be +reclaimed and turned into decent men and women, a good many farmers’ +wives will sleep comfortably at night, especially when geese and turkeys +are being fattened for Christmas fare; and a desirable impulse will be +given to the trade in soap. + + + + +XV.—THE STREET BOYS OF LONDON. + + +One of the comic sights of the City is that of a guardian of the streets +making an attack upon a bevy of small boys, who are enjoying themselves +in their own wild way in some quiet corner sacred to the pursuits of +trade. It may be that the ragged urchins are pretending to be engaged in +business, but X. Y. Z. knows better, and, remembering that order is +heaven’s first law, and that the aim of all good men and true is to make +London as much as possible like the New Jerusalem, he dashes in amongst +the chaotic mob in the vain hope that he shall be able to send them about +their business. Alas! London in one respect resembles a place not +mentioned in ears polite, in that it is paved with good intentions. X. +Y. Z. is a case in point. In a fair field the chances would be in his +favour. He has long legs, he is well made, he has more than an average +amount of bone and muscle, but he is not fairly matched. Indeed, he is +as much out of his element in the contest as a bull in a china shop. He +can’t dodge under horses’ bellies; he can’t crawl between the wheels of +an omnibus or railway waggon; he can’t hide his portly form behind a +letter pillar; and his pursuit is as vain as that of a butterfly by a +buffalo; and generally he does but put to rout the juvenile mob, and +resolve it into its component parts only for a time. It is not always +so. A. B. C. comes to the aid of X. Y. Z., and captures the small boy, +who, to avoid Charybdis, falls a prey to Scylla, and then the precious +prize is borne away before the bench, and Old Jewry rejoices, for there +is one little pest the less. Of course the policeman is right. He does +what I could not do. I am not a millionaire, but it would require a very +handsome sum to get me to go boy-hunting down Cheapside or in any of its +adjacent streets. X. Y. Z. has less sense of incongruity than I have, or +he sees the eternal fitness of things from a different point of view. +Let me observe here the boy has also a standpoint differing from either. + +Let me take a single case. Jack Smith, as we will call him, was the son +of a Scotch piper. He was born—or he has heard his mother say so—in one +of the vast number of the courts that lead out of the Strand. His father +was in the army, but on his discharge took to playing in the streets and +in public-houses for his living till his death a few years back. As to +his mother—hear this, ye sentimentalists who say pretty things about a +mother’s love!—she deserted the boy, and left him to shift for himself. +He took, of course, to selling lights and newspapers. When he got money +he lodged in the Mint, when he had not, he slept in the barges off Thames +Street. At last one morning he was caught by a policeman, and hauled +before the Lord Mayor. The latter let him off that time, but warned the +boy that if he were caught again it would be the duty of society to send +him to gaol. What can such a boy think of society? Will he be very +grateful for its kindness, or very anxious for its welfare? I think not. +London, it is calculated, contains ten thousand of these shoeless, +homeless, friendless, forsaken, ragged, unwashed, uncombed young urchins +of doubtful antecedents. It is difficult to trace their genealogies, and +it is still more difficult to understand why they ever came into +existence at all. They are not a blessing either to father or mother, +and as a rule may be said to deny the existence of parental authority +altogether. “Mother dead; father gone for a soldier—a sailor”—as the +case may be—is the common result of all inquiry; and, when it is not so, +when father and mother do “turn up”—“turn up” from the nearest gin-shop, +all redolent of its perfume—it is not always to the boy’s advantage. +Solomon says, “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child;” he might +have said the same of many who are not children; and what is to be +expected of a boy who is born and bred, as it were, in the streets of +London? I have known wise fathers have foolish sons. I have seen the +children of what are called pious people go astray. In the very city of +London many are the ministers’ and clergymen’s sons who kick over the +traces. The crop of wild oats sown by some of these young fellows is +really astonishing. It was only the other day that the son of the +foremost baronet in Evangelical circles, the last scion as it were of a +noble house, stood trembling at the bar of the Old Bailey. But these +children of the gutter have never had a chance of going right. No mother +has watched their every step—no father has held up to them a living +example of truth and integrity and right—no teacher has waited the +dawning of their young intellect—no Christian minister has moulded and +guided the workings of their young hearts—the atmosphere in which they +live and move and have their being as of poverty and crime. Mostly they +run away from home, the home of the thief and the harlot and the +drunkard, and what they learn they learn in the back streets of +Whitechapel, in the filthy courts of Drury Lane, in the purlieus of St. +Giles. Like perpetuates its like. The seed of the serpent is always +venomous; the tiger’s cub is always thirsting for blood. There are +gutter children in London who have risen to be merchant princes, but they +have come of an honest good family stock. As to those of whom I write, +there is a curse on them from their very birth. Happily for them, they +are unconscious of it, and yet in some undefined way it treads upon their +steps. Like Gray’s naughty schoolboys: + + They hear a voice in every wind, + And catch a fearful joy. + +As I say, they are secretly conscious of a war between themselves and all +that is deemed respectable. They feel that society, in the shape of the +policeman, has its eye upon them. They have very restless eyes and very +restless legs. They are as unlike the primitive ploughboy of the fat +fields of Suffolk, of the swamps of Essex, of the fens of Lincolnshire, +of the Sussex Downs, as can well be imagined. You can scarcely fancy +they belong to the same species; yet, at the same time, the street boy of +the city is the same all the world over. In Paris, in London, in +Edinburgh, in Dublin, and Belfast, the dirty little ragged rascals are +intrinsically one and the same—barring the speech. It is wonderful this +oneness of sentiment, the bonds of brotherhood. The other day, on the +pier at Boulogne, I lit a fusee for the purpose of having a smoke. +Before I could say Jack Robinson, I was beset with hordes of ragged, +shoeless, unwashed urchins, just the same as those you see in Cheapside; +and it was only by bribery and corruption that I could emancipate myself. +In London, as is to be expected, we have more of the commercial element; +there is less freedom for them here. They must turn traders, and hawk +_Echos_ and cigar-lights, or sweep crossings. As to miscellaneous and +irregular talent, society fosters it no more in the ragged boy than it +does in the well-clad man, and so we have got rid of the Catherine-wheel +business and dangerous gymnastics of that kind. Many boys have the vices +of their breed—the vices engendered by a life of poverty and of fear. +They are afraid to be honest in their answers. They are afraid, when you +talk to them, you have got some end in view. They will watch you, when +you question them, to see how they can best please you. If you want to +see what they are, catch them flattening their noses against the +eating-house shop windows just about pudding time. That’s human nature, +and a wonderful thing is human nature. It would be well if society would +take the trouble to recognise that fact. It was the want of the +recognition of that fact in the good old times, when wild lawlessness was +tempered with Draconian severity, that has entailed on the present +generation the difficult problem as to what is to be done with our street +boys. + +Two solutions of the problem are offered us—the Reformatory School and +the Refuges for Homeless and Destitute Children. According to our +statisticians, in the former seventy per cent. are reclaimed and +reformed. According to the latter, eighty per cent. are similarly +improved. Mr. Williams, of Great Queen Street, claims for his +institutions that they have an advantage over the reformatories, inasmuch +as the taint of a prison attaches to the former; and that the fact of a +boy having been an inmate of one of them exerts very often a most +unfavourable influence over his prospects in life, however desirous he +may be of acting honestly and industriously. For years and years he +becomes marked, and is treated with more or less suspicion; and, when +this is the case, it is not to be wondered at if he returns to a life in +which the standard of action is very different to that of good society, +and in which the most successful criminals are the most highly envied and +applauded. The returns of the Great Queen Street Refuge show, however, +much may be done to cure the evils arising from suffering the street boys +of our day to ripen under the devil’s guidance into depravity and crime. +Last year, there were admitted there 445 boys, as follows: From various +casual wards and other night-shelters, 63; on the application of parties +interested in their welfare, 95; on their own application, 98; sent in by +the secretary and subscribers from the street, 76; brought in by the +boys’ beadle (that is, a person employed to hunt up needy cases), 17; +sent by magistrates and policemen, as being utterly destitute, 17; sent +by London City missionaries, ragged-school teachers, and others, 44; +readmitted from the ship, 60; sent from Newsboys’ Home, 29. The benefit +of such an agency is still more apparent when we remember that it is not +much more than five years since the _Chichester_ training-ship has been +established, and that during that time, upwards of one thousand boys have +been placed on board, and in little more than four years and a half the +committee have trained and placed out in the Mercantile Marine and Royal +Navy as many as seven hundred boys, all of whom, it is to be remembered, +were bound to be, from necessity, as it were, the criminal classes of +society. But, after all, this is but a drop in the bucket. It is +something to do; it is a great deal to do. England requires good sailor +lads; and these lads generally, according to the testimony of their +masters, turn out such. At Farningham, the secretary, Mr. A. O. Charles, +will show you any day three hundred street arabs all growing respectable. +England is already overstocked with incapables and scoundrels; and these +boys would have been such had not kindly hearts and friendly hands come +to the rescue. That they can be trained and made useful we see in the +number of well-conducted blacking boys, of whom, I believe, the number is +three hundred and sixty-two, and in the little scavengers who pursue +their calling almost at the very peril of their life. In 1851 the first +Shoe-black Society was formed. There are now eight, and last year the +earnings of the boys amounted to upwards of £11,000. Only think of all +this money made by London mud! + +Clearly the street boy can be elevated in the scale of being. The vices +of his early life may be eradicated. The better part of him may be +strengthened and called into existence. He is not all bad, nor +altogether incurable. He is what you and I might have been, good or bad, +had we been left to ourselves. It is hard work winning him over. It +requires a patience and a wisdom such as only a few possess, but it can +be done, and it must be done, if the future of our country is to be +brighter and better than its past. Ah, he is very human, that little +unwashed, uncombed, unfed, untended nobody’s child. Leave him alone, and +he will be cunning as a serpent, cruel as a wolf, like a roaring lion, +ever hungering for its prey. Grown up to a man, and not hung, he will +cost the State a great deal of money, for no man wastes property like the +thief, and to try him and shut him in prison is very costly work. It is +infinitely cheaper to make an honest man of him. For ten pounds you may +plant him with a Canadian settler, who will make a man of him, in a very +few years. At any rate it is unwise to treat him unkindly, to keep him +moving on, to chivy him for ever along the streets, much to the disgust +of old ladies, who are always “dratting” those horrid boys. It is to be +feared their number is on the increase, and this, I regret to write, is +the testimony of one who ought to know. What is the reason? My +informant tells me it is diminished parental authority. Every day, +mothers and fathers come to him with boys of tender years, whom they +declare to be utterly unmanageable. Another cause undoubtedly is our +cheap and trashy literature. Recently, a great newsvendor stated before +a committee of the House of Commons, that he sold weekly one hundred of +“The Black Monk,” one hundred of “Blighted Heart,” five hundred and fifty +of “Claude Duval,” fifty of “The Hangman’s Daughter,” and three hundred +and fifty of “Paul Clifford.” If you want to see what these boys read, +visit Kent Street or the New Cut. Look at the sensational pictures of +the cheap illustrated journals, in which murder, suicide, and crime are +the staple commodities treated of. Read some of the journals professedly +written for boys, and which you will see the boys read if you happen to +pass any large establishment at the dinner hour, and it will not be +difficult to understand what street boys, if left to themselves, are sure +to become. + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + * * * * * + + CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DAYS AND NIGHTS IN LONDON*** + + +******* This file should be named 36683-0.txt or 36683-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/6/8/36683 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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