Chapter II: Part 2

Strand, is a busy place by day-time (it does a great business in the newspaper line, and about four or five in the afternoon it is used by the acute newsboys of the metropolis as a kind of Change), but it is busier far by night, and the later the hour the more active and lively it grows. As you walk along the Strand any time in the afternoon and evening, have you not seen (to our shame be it said) a sight not visible in the chief thoroughfare of any other capital in Europe? The sight I allude to is that of girls, whose profession is but too evident from their appearance, stopping almost every man they meet, mildly, perhaps, in the early part of the evening--but, under the influence of drink, with greater rudeness and freedom as the night wears on. These girls, as you observe, are dressed in finery hired for the purpose; and following them, as a hawk its prey, you will perceive at a respectful distance old hags, always Jewesses, whose business it is to see that these girls do not escape with their fine dresses, and that they are active in their efforts to entrap young men void of understanding. Well, these women all live in the neighbourhood of Catherine-street. What a filthy trade the Jews and Jewesses of London drive! You may go into Elysiums, and wine-rooms, and saloons, in this district, and you will find them belonging to Jews--the waiters Jews--the wine, the women, the cigars, all in the hands of Jews--true to their ancient vocation of "spoiling the Egyptians." Let me not be understood as joining in vulgar prejudices against the Jews. Without reading "Coningsby," or "Lord George Bentinck, a Political Biography," I am ready to confess that there have been, and still are, great and gifted men born to the Jewish race; but I am speaking of the vile crew who earn an infamous livelihood by pandering to all that is degraded in man or woman--whose vulture eyes follow you up and down Catherine-street, and who, if they could, would rob you of your last farthing, and tear off from your back its last rag, and who by fair means or foul rear up prostitutes, and trade in flesh and blood. But pardon the digression, and yet not exactly is the subject a digression, when we remember Catherine-street and its neighbouring courts would be a very different locality, had not the Jews selected it as a fitting place for operation. In the days Consule Planco, as Mr Thackeray would write, in the hot youth of the Regency, before George IV. had become prematurely used up, and a moral people had erected a statue to the memory of the most dissolute king in Christendom as a lesson for England's ingenuous youth and as an example for future royal princes, Catherine-street was gay indeed, if wine and profligacy in the lowest and worst reality of forms are ever gay. There was Mother H.'s, where bucks assembled, and reckless women danced and drank for a few short years ere they died wretchedly in parish poor-houses, or sought oblivion and repose in the dark waters of the neighbouring Thames. Up and down Catherine-street what wretchedness masked in smiles has walked--what sin in satin--what devilish craft and brutal lust, aye, and, what is worse than all, what unavailing repentance and regret!

A very fleeting population is that of Catherine-street. These women, commencing their life at eighteen, are few of them supposed to last more than eight years; and if you see them in the day-time, before they are painted and dressed up--with their red eyes and bloated faces, you will think few of them will last even that short time; but they pass on one by one to the spirit land, not as did Antigone, conscious of duty done, though wailing her unwedded state, nor as Jephthah's high-souled daughter, for whom Hebrew maidens devoutly wept--but with body and soul alike loathsome and steeped in sin. Here in Catherine-street vice is a monster of a hideous mien. The gay women, as they are termed, are worse off than American slaves, and the men at the best are but drunken fools frittering away time and money and health, and rooting out from their hearts all trace of the divine that may be yet lingering there. The West is the more fashionable quarter, and the glory of Catherine-street is fled. Almost every house you come to is a public-house, or something worse. Here there is a free-and-easy after the theatres are over; there a lounge open all night for the entertainment of bullies and prostitutes, and pickpockets and thieves, greenhorns from the country or London-born; here a dancing saloon, which we are told in the advertisement no visitor should leave London without first seeing, and there a coffee-house where, when expelled from gayer places of resort, half intoxicated men and women take an early breakfast. All round you are bitter memories. Every stone you tread is red with blood; you can almost hear the last dying shriek of virtue, before, by means of the tempting purse or the hocussed draught, the poor victim--feebler in her struggles every hour--be lost for ever. Yet the gas burns brightly by night, and there is dancing, and wine, and songs, and in the small hours you may hear a hollow laughter, sadder even than cries and tears. Think what years and years of tedious culture must have elapsed to produce this concentrated essence of vice. How many must have died in the seasoning--how many must have turned back shuddering as they saw the dark ending to their infatuated career--how many weeping parents must have won back to decency and the observance of moral and social law--how many the want of pecuniary means must have compelled into a reluctant abstinence! Such a crop could only be reared in such a Sodom and Gomorrha as ours. That landlord, gloating over his ill-gotten gains, could not have sunk into so fallen a condition rapidly. It has taken years to make him what he is. There is no excuse for him, and he knows it. It is not for the honest refreshment of the weary or the _bona fide_ accommodation of the public that his house is open. The real public have been in bed for hours. These men around us are here for immoral purposes. These women are on the same bad errand, and that they may better pursue their vocation, here they come and drink; but he sells his poison, thinking not of the mischief it will do, but of the gain it will bring. Is he not a degraded man, with his double chin, and dirty face, and low forehead? can you see in him one trace of benevolence or humanity? Do you doubt this?--spend your last farthing in his bar, pawn every article of clothing you have, and go with an empty pocket and in rags, and you will soon be ordered to the door. You see he is now turning out that wretched creature. He has allowed her to drink till she has no more money; but she solicited chance customers, and they treated her to gin, and so the landlord let her stop; but now she is so drunk as to interfere with his business, and he turns her houseless and friendless out into the streets. Let us watch her. She is too far gone to have any decency left. Drink and sadness combined have tortured her brain to madness. Her curses fill the air; a crowd collects; the police come up; she is borne on a stretcher to Bow-street, and in the morning is dismissed with a reprimand, or sentenced to a month's imprisonment, as the sitting magistrate is in a good temper or the reverse. The longer we stop here the more of such scenes shall we see, for with such publicans and sinners Catherine-street abounds. I have known life lost here in these midnight brawls; yet by day it has a dull and decent appearance, and little would the passing stranger guess all its revelations of sorrow and of crime.

THE BAL MASQUE,

In foreign lands, we are told, is something refined and delicate. I have been to some abroad which certainly were nothing of the kind; but in England, or rather in London, they are low, blackguard places, whether in the Holborn Casino, or Covent Garden, or the Grecian Saloon, or Vauxhall, or at Drury-lane. In 1723 they were put down by government. Steele wrote of them, that in his time, "the misfortune of the thing is, that people dress themselves in what they have a mind to be--and not what they are fit for." I have seen the French men and women at Vauxhall, and if they do in Paris what they do there--why, then I doubt somewhat of the superiority even of French Bal Masques. But in England a public Bal Masque is a disgusting exhibition, to enjoy which every moral sense must be deadened, and then a man must be drunk and have his pockets well lined. The rustic flower-girls and simple hay-makers with whom you dance will drink champagne as if it were ginger-beer, and consume all the delicacies of the season as if they cost no more than bacon and beans.

The fun, as it is termed, generally commences about 11 P.M., by an immense mob of costermongers, tag-rag and bob-tail, forming themselves in a row under the _surveillance_ of the police, to watch and criticise the appearance of the maskers, and specially to regale themselves with jokes should any unfortunate do the economical and arrive on foot. I hear people say they like London--they can do anything they like without being observed. I doubt that much. I advise the strong-minded female who tells me that, to walk down Cheapside in a Bloomer costume, and I will warrant she will have as great a mob accompanying her as followed Kossuth or any other hero to Guildhall. But to return to the Bal Masque. I presume the company are arriving and the little boys are cheering, as only little boys can, right under cab wheels and in between the horses' legs. Some of the company, to borrow an ancient witticism, go disguised as gentlemen--some buy a mask at the door for fourpence--others delight in monstrous noses and fearful moustache--others, especially those who have fancy dresses, appear as Charles II.s, Cardinal Wolseys, Shakspeares, Henry VIII.s, Scotch Highlanders, Australian Diggers, Monks, and look far better when they enter than they do when they make their exit in the early light of a summer morning. The same remark holds true of their female companions, who are mostly the same ladies that you meet in Regent-street in the afternoon, or hanging about the Hay-market all night, a class at no time remarkable for modesty, but whom we shall see in the course of the evening becoming bold and brazenfaced with excitement and wine. But the theatre is full--the guests are met--the band is assembled--the leader wields the baton--the sparkling chandeliers give a lustre to the scene, and away they bound to the music, whilst from the boxes and the gallery admiring crowds look down. Yes, there is a wild excitement in the hour, which stirs even the pulses of old blood. The women, as debardeurs, flower girls, sailor boys--many of them with faces fitting them for diviner lives, look beautiful even in their degradation and shame. Horace tells us, wherever we go black care gets up and rides behind. Is it so? Can there be sad hearts beneath those gay exteriors? Do those cheeks flushed and radiant eyes indicate that they belong to those whom all moralists have held infamous, all religions condemned, and whose existence our modern civilization perpetuates and deplores? Is man an immortal being, sent here for awhile to triumph over fleshly lusts and passions, to learn to trample as dross on the vanities of earth, and to set his affections on things above? Is it true that the most successful votaries of pleasure, from kingly Solomon to lordly Byron, have borne the same testimony to them, that they are not worth the gathering, that they are but as apples gathered by the shore of the Dead Sea, fair to the eye but deadly to the taste, and that in no way can they answer the need and aspirations of the heart of man, which is greater and grander than them all? Have we paid ministers of religion, bishops and archbishops, millions and millions of pounds to teach men these few self-evident truths, and yet do such orgies as those of which we write not merely exist but flourish, as if we had accepted the creed of the Atheist,--"Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die"? To-morrow! who around us now thinks of to-morrow? Not the young rake chaffing and dancing before us, whose mirth is the delirium of forgetfulness and the intoxication of wine, whose to-morrow is Whitecross-street Prison or the Insolvent Debtors' Court. Not that brazenfaced woman now arrayed in splendour, and surrounded by her admirers, whose to-morrow is old age, neglect, and a garret. Not those grey-headed gouty old sinners in the boxes, who have not the excuse of youth for the follies with which they desecrate old age. And certainly not that pale clerk, who has most probably embezzled his employer's money, and who is frantically exclaiming, "Waiter, another bottle of champagne," as he tells the women of his lot that he feels "a cup too low." You say he has them to cheer him. Yes, till his money is gone. When he is at Bow-street, as assuredly he will soon be, I promise you they will not be the last to give evidence as to his possession of funds, or the manner of his spending them. There may be honour among thieves, there is none among women when they have once lost their own.

Still gaily goes on the dancing. Then there is supper and wine--and more dancing, and more music, and more wine. The reporters for the papers generally leave about supper-time, and state that the gaieties were prolonged till a late hour; it is well they do this. In the earlier part of the evening the rioting and chaffing is somewhat of the coarsest, and the wit somewhat of the poorest; and the later it grows, and the more potent is the vinous influence, the less select, or rather the more obscene, is the phraseology. In the wild saturnalia that ensues, all the restraints of decency and habit are thrown on one side. It is time to close, and the conductor sees this. Already Henry VIII. is right royally drunk, and Cardinal Wolsey is uttering flat blasphemy, and one monk has got a black eye, another a bloody nose. Unless, as in the case of Covent Garden, the theatre is burned down, and the proceedings are abruptly terminated, there is a final dance,--a patriotic rendering of the national anthem,--and into the air walk, or rather tumble, the debauchees, some to go home quietly to bed, others to keep it up in the nearest coffee-houses and public-houses; and handmaidens rising early to take in the milk in various parts of the metropolis are astonished by the exceedingly unsteady gait and singular costumes of various dismal gents, who have, if they are not absolute fools, sworn that it will be a long time before they go to another masque bal. Such, I believe, is the general conclusion, the only exceptions being the costumier who provides the dresses, generally a Jew, and the bigger Jew who furnishes the wine.

UP THE HAYMARKET.

If I take up the reports of our various religious societies, I find we are spending an enormous sum in sending the Gospel into foreign parts. I don't say but what this is praiseworthy--Indians, Turks, Jews, Assyrians, bond and free, are they not all children of one common Father with ourselves?--but let us not overlook after all the claims of home. I do not speak now of the lowest classes, of the refuse and outcasts of our towns, of the Pariahs of our civilization; I speak of the heathens in satin and broadcloth, of the vice that wears patent leather boots and the best French kid, of the intemperance that feasts at rich men's tables, and that is born of hock, and claret, and champagne.

But what has all this to do with the Haymarket? Wait awhile, and your curiosity will be satisfied. It is day-time, and we will stroll up thither. There is nothing peculiar about the place, except the unusual number of gin-palaces, hotels, French restaurants, oyster-shops, coffee-houses with the blinds drawn, as if to show they did not care to do business, and the general sleepy appearance of the waiters. There is a cab-stand seemingly inclined to shut up shop, and if it were not for the omnibuses there would be but few indications of life. On the right-hand side as you go from Pall Mall there are most respectable shops, but the wonder to me is how they manage to attract custom sufficient to enable them to pay what must be their very heavy rents. At the top of the Haymarket we find the street from Leicester-square to Piccadilly always full of traffic, and just opposite are the oyster-shops, and Turkish divans and cafes, all quiet enough now, but at the witching hour of night destined to be filled to suffocation with fast men and flash women, with cabs and carriages, with old hags with fruit and flowers, male vendors of pencils and knives, policemen and bullies, fools and rogues. Let us skip over a short interval of time, and suppose the neighbouring church bells to have chimed the midnight hour. A few steps take us to the Lowther Arcade. We take our stand with a crowd just opposite a building with an entrance lighted with gas, which we learn to be a handsome casino--one of the handsomest in London--devoted to dancing and drinking. The hour of closing has arrived, and the votaries of pleasure, as it is called, are leaving. There are an immense number of women all splendidly dressed--from the young girl who has not yet learnt the bitterness of the life she has ventured on, to the woman thoroughly dead to all feeling, all modesty, and shame. It is a sad sight, though few see the snake in the grass for the flowers; and of the gay ones there none think they will ever become like the bloated, ragged women now standing in their path and asking with the true professional whine for alms. Some are borne away in broughams, some in cabs, but the most on foot. Let us now look at the men. You cannot see a finer set anywhere. Are not the flower of our youth and manhood there? Of course I refer merely to their physical formation. Young fellows from the army and navy, men from all our universities and inns of court, gents from the city and the Stock Exchange, and respectable middle-aged country gentlemen stopping in town a night, and just dropping in to see what is going on. Before us there is enough material to found a mighty empire, including even that pale melancholy little lordling dashing along in his cab, who has already, boy as he is, a regiment; and all this multitude is going headlong to the devil at express speed, in spite of the baptismal vow and the ministrations of the church. But let us see what they are about. Here a portion seeks supper at the neighbouring oyster-rooms, and a rush is made at the waiters as they bring in oysters and pale ale, as if the parties had been famishing all day. Then we knock at the door of a place at one time much patronized by a certain marquis, and still bearing his name; and we find some that we saw leaving the casino here drinking; or we go into another, where the crowd is so dense we have scarce room to stand, and find the same occupation vigorously carried on. Of course at the places which do not have closed doors the bars are all filled, and drinking seems the order of the night. In the mean while let us march up Piccadilly. The small hours have now come, yet the place is redolent with life. Young fellows are singing "We won't go home till morning"--policemen are bidding the unfortunates that won't fee them move on--hideous females are waiting to rob the drunkards they may meet in their path--and men with hawk eyes and hungry aspect are hovering all round like so many birds of prey; and boys--for they are everywhere, all dirt and rags, yet happy in the richness of young life, for childhood, even the most abandoned, can never be sad--dance round us, in the hope that "your honour" will find a copper for "poor little Jack," singing to us of that far-famed Ratcatcher's Daughter, who

"Didn't live in Vestministere,
But the t'other side of the vatere."

Well, I'd rather be one of them than the proprietress of yon house, with the gas lamp over the door, who by this time has been borne by the Great Northern in a first-class carriage, side by side with senators, and city magistrates, and clergymen, and it may be your wife or mine, to her country seat. We are standing in the very temple of vice--its ministers are all round us. Not one unholy appetite but can be gratified here; gamblers, blacklegs, prostitutes, surround us on every side. Here law, and order, and decency are alike all violated. If it be in the prohibited hours, we can go into coffee-houses and get as much brandy as we like, which of course is easily removed when the signal is made that the inspector is coming, and is again brought out when he is gone. But let us knock at this door; the glare of gas indicates that there is something going on, though the cold fowl in the window, and the cigar shop close by, scarcely inform us what. We pay for admission, and, entering through a narrow passage, find ourselves in a large saloon, with a balcony all round. On the ground-floor of course there is dancing, and at the end is a bar where drink is being rapidly supplied. Up in the balcony are young fellows sitting with gaily-dressed women, drinking sherry-cobblers and smoking cigars. In time the room gets crowded, and the people in it grow a little the worse for drink. Though we can scarce see for the smoke, and hear on account of the roar of many tongues, it is not difficult to perceive in the hilariousness of some, in the bad temper of others, in the stupidity of most, and in the foul language of all, that the drink is producing its legitimate effect. That girl in satin and rouge in another hour we shall see lying on the stone pavement with an unmeaning grin, till she is borne by policemen on a stretcher to the lock-up. That fine manly lad, out to see life, will sleep to-night where the mother now praying for him in her dreams little imagines. _She_ would not have sunk so low, _he_ never would have blasted a mother's hopes, had it not have been for the drink. Come out with me into the air. What a crowd there is round us, all looking pale and seedy in the clear light of a summer morn! What has kept them out all night? What has made them what they are but the drink? You start at that moving mass of sores and rags. I remember her fair and beautiful, richly apparelled and sumptuously fed; but the drink has been her bane, and will be, till one of these calm summer mornings she will be carried insensible to the nearest hospital, thence to be buried, unwept and unknown, in a pauper's grave. Away from this moral dunghill. In a few hours the police will have retired, the debauchees will have gone home to bed, the oyster-houses and gin-palaces will be deserted, the place will have a serious and quiet business air, and bishops will ride past it in their cushioned carriages to make speeches at meetings for the promotion of the Gospel in foreign parts. As we go up Regent-street we see the lamps being extinguished, and the milk carts going round, and the red newspaper expresses tearing along to catch the early train, and the green hills of Hampstead looking lovelier than ever. In the sober light of day our night in the Haymarket will seem unreal, and when we shall tell our experiences, we shall be told possibly that our picture is overdrawn.

THE CANTERBURY HALL.

"Give me the songs of the people, and you may make its laws," said old Fletcher, of Saltoun, with a knowledge of human nature which statesmen do not frequently possess. Necessity is a stern taskmaster, and the workman in the factory, and the clerk in the counting-house, and the shopman behind the counter, are generally compelled to stick pretty close to work, and to the eye of the observer present very much the same appearance. They come at certain hours, they go at certain hours, and perform their daily toil with a certain amount of effectiveness and skill. Very little credit is due to them for this--their livelihood depends upon their being diligent and active--and hence I know little of the individual by merely witnessing him toiling for his daily bread. I must follow him home; I must be with him in his hours of relaxation; I must listen to the songs he sings and the jokes he attempts; I must see what is his idea of pleasure, and thus only can I get at the man as he is. Even his church or chapel goings I cannot take as indications of his real nature. He may go because his parents go, because his master goes, because his friends go, because he has been trained to go, because society expects him to go,--for a hundred reasons all equally vain in the eyes of Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men; but no man is a hypocrite where his pleasures are concerned. I can gather more about him from the way in which he spends his leisure hours than I can from his active employments of the day. They are poor miserable philosophers indeed, and guilty of an enormous blunder, who, in their investigation into the moral and social condition of the people, refuse to notice the amusements of the people in their hours of gaiety and ease. I make, then, no apology for introducing you to Canterbury Hall.

The Upper Marsh, Westminster-road, is what is called a low neighbourhood. It is not far from Astley's Theatre. Right through it runs the South Western Railway, and everywhere about it are planted pawnbrokers' shops, with an indescribable amount of dirty second-hand clothes, and monster gin-palaces, with unlimited plate-glass and gas. Go along there what hour of the day you will, these gin-palaces are full of ragged children, hideous old women, and drunken men. "The bane and the antidote," you may say, "are thus side by side." True, but you forget that youth in its search for pleasure is blind, and sees not the warning till it is too late; and of the hundreds rushing on to the Canterbury Hall for a quiet glass, none think they will fall so low as the victims of intemperance reeling, cursing, fighting, blaspheming, in their path. But let us pass on. A well-lighted entrance attached to a public-house indicates that we have reached our destination. We proceed up a few stairs, along a passage lined with handsome engravings, to a bar, where we pay sixpence if we take a seat in the body of the hall, and nine-pence if we do the nobby and ascend into the balcony. We make our way leisurely along the floor of the building, which is really a very handsome hall, well lighted, and capable of holding fifteen hundred persons; the balcony extends round the room in the form of a horseshoe. At the opposite end to which we enter is the platform, on which is placed a grand piano and a harmonium, on which the performers play in the intervals when the professional singers have left the stage. The chairman sits just beneath them. It is dull work to him; but there he must sit every night smoking cigars and drinking, from seven till twelve o'clock. I fancy I detect a little touch of rouge just on the top of his cheek; he may well need it, for even on a fine summer night like this the room is crowded, and almost every gentleman present has a pipe or a cigar in his mouth. Let us look round us; evidently the majority present are respectable mechanics, or small tradesmen with their wives and daughters and sweethearts there. Now and then you see a midshipman, or a few fast clerks and warehousemen, who confidentially inform each other that there is "no end of talent here," and that Miss --- "is a doosed fine gal;" and here, as elsewhere, we see a few of the class of unfortunates, whose staring eyes would fain extort an admiration which their persons do not justify. Every one is smoking, and every one has a glass before him; but the class that come here are economical, and chiefly confine themselves to pipes and porter. The presence of the ladies has also a beneficial effect; I see no indication of intoxication, and certainly none of the songs are obscene. I may question the worth of such stanzas as the following, sung by Mr R. Grover, Miss Pearce, and the whole of the company:--

ALFRED.

We'll drink to the beauty that's beaming around,
Where Nature's own flowers are blooming;
Where none but the voices of happiness sound,
And our pathway the love-light illumes.
We'll drink, too, to the rosy god,
The god of love and beauty,
For all who are his vot'ries
Must tender him their duty.
We'll drink while there's love in the cup which we quaff,
Since't is love o'er the world reigns supreme.

CHORUS.

We'll drink to friendship firm and true,
While love the cup shall crown.

VIOLETTA.

Come, bask in the pleasure that falls to our share,
For Time on the wing's ever flying,
And flowers of love are exotics so rare,
Their odour's scarce shed ere 't is flown.
Be gay, for youth must soon depart,
And even love will vanish,
The brightest scenes, alas! will fade,
And sweetest pleasures pall.
Be gay, then, while youth still untrammell'd by care
Shall invite us to joy and to love.

CHORUS.

Ah! let us join in the toast,
In the song and the revelling,
Passing the night in mirthful pleasure,
While love shall teach us how to treasure
This paradise on earth.

I may think I have heard sublimer compositions than the following, sung by Mrs Caulfield with great applause:--

Fare you well, my own Mary Anne,
Fare you well for a while:
For the ship it is ready, and the wind it is fair,
And I am bound for the sea, Mary Anne.
Fare you well, &c.

Don't you see that turtle dove,
A sitting on yonder pile,
Lamenting the loss of its own true love?--
And so am I for mine, Mary Anne.
Fare you well, &c.

A lobster in a lobster-pot,
A blue-fish wriggling on a hook,
May suffer some, but, oh! no not
What I do feel for my Mary Anne.
Fare you well, &c.

The pride of all the produce rare,
That in our kitchen-garden grow'd,
Was pumpkins, but none could compare
In angel-form to my Mary Anne.
Fare you well, &c.

or of the following, sung by Mrs Caulfield with still greater applause:--

Down in Skytown lived a maid,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
Churning butter was her trade,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
She loved a feller whose name was Will,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
His dad he used to own the mill,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

CHORUS.

Kemo, kimo, where? oh there! my high, my low,
Then in came Sally singing,
Sometimes, Medley winkum lingtum nip cat.
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

She wanted Will for worse or better,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
She'd have married, but dad wouldn't let her.
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
And so she went and got a knife,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
She broke her heart and lost her life,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
Kemo, kimo, &c.

Then Josh he felt his dander risin',
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
So he went and swallow'd pisin,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
The village folks laugh'd in their sleeve,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
For Jordan's a hard road to travel, I believe,
Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?
Kemo, kimo, &c.

But, compared with many of the places frequented by both sexes, Canterbury Hall is a respectable place. I may think that more rational amusement might be found than by sitting smoking and drinking in a large room on a hot summer's night. I may have my doubts whether all go home sober--the presence of a policeman in the room indicated that at times there was need for his services--but I believe the association of song and drinking and amusements pernicious in the extreme; and, knowing that man needs relaxation--that he must have his hour of amusement as well as of work--I cannot too earnestly press upon the advocates of Temperance reform the desirableness of their out-bidding the public-house in the attempts to cater for the entertainment of the people. That they do not do so, is clear. Where once we had a National Hall in Holborn, for the action of moral influences, a publican has erected a hall--for singing and drinking--capable, I should think, of holding 1200 people, and crammed every night. Then the "Lord Raglan" holds as many. Nor are these alone the only competitors for public patronage; their name is Legion.

RATCLIFFE-HIGHWAY.

London is several cities rolled into one. If we walk along Regent-street, it is a city of gorgeous shops,--if you turn into the West, of parks and palaces,--if you traverse St Giles, of gin and dirt;--again, in Belgravia it is rich and grand,--in Pimlico it is poor and pretentious,--in Russell-square it is well to do,--in Islington it is plain and pious; and, strange as it may seem, the people are equally localised in their ideas. Jobson, the Stock-broker, lives at Clapham, and for years he has never set foot in any other streets than those leading from the Stock Exchange to that select and favoured spot. The law clerks, who live in Pimlico, seldom stray further than John-street, Bedford-row. The city gents from Islington and Holloway generally cluster round the Bank or the Post-office, and for years go in the morning and return at night by one unvaried route. The races are equally distinct. The swells in the Park, the millers in Mark-lane, the graziers in the new cattle-market, the Jews in Houndsditch or Holywell-street, the prim pale lads in the city, the sailors in Deptford and Wapping, the German sugar-bakers in Whitechapel, really form distinct communities, and are as worth studying as any race of

"Red Indians dwelling beyond the sunset,
And the baths of all the Western stars."

I should not like a son of mine to be born and bred in Ratcliffe-highway. That there would be a charming independence in his character, a spurning of that dreary conventionalism which makes cowards of us all, and under the deadly weight of which the heart of this great old England seems becoming daily more sick and sad, a cosmopolitanism rich and racy in the extreme,--all this I admit I should have every reason to expect, but, at the same time, I believe the disadvantages would preponderate vastly. How is this? you ask. Does not Ratcliffe-highway form part of our highly-favoured land? I grant it does. I confess that there the Queen's writ is a power, that it boasts the protection of the police, that it pays rates and taxes, that it has its churches and chapels, that it is not cut off from the rest of the empire, that it is traversed by railways, by cabs and busses, and by postmen. Nevertheless, Ratcliffe-highway is not a favourite spot of mine. I saw lately a letter from an Englishman in the _Times_, complaining of the magistrates of Hamburg, because when he was coming from church with some ladies, he strayed into a street where his sense of decorum was very properly shocked. I know the street as I do every street in Hamburg, and I know this, that it ill becomes Englishmen to write of the immorality of Hamburg, or any other continental town. Let him walk down Ratcliffe-highway or any other spot where vice loses all its charms by appearing in all its grossness. I fear that it is not true generally to the eyes of the class she leads astray, that

"Vice is a monster of such hideous mien,
That to be hated, needs but to be seen,"

but I think it is true, or at any rate it contains a portion of truth, so far as regards Ratcliffe-highway, a stroll in which place is sure to shock more senses than one. In beastliness I think it surpasses Cologne with its seven and thirty stenches, or even Bristol or a Welsh town.

Ratcliffe-highway lies contiguous to the commerce and the port of London. The men and boys engaged in navigating merchant vessels belonging to ports of the British Empire were in 1851, 240,298; and of this multitude a large portion at some time or other resides in Ratcliffe-highway. In 1856, 826 vessels, with a tonnage of 498,594 tons, entered the port of London. Jack, when he's ashore, resides here, and Jack ashore is the weakest and simplest of men. As an illustration of the way in which Jack is done--whether in any provincial port or London, for crimps are the same all the world over,--let me refer to a case heard at the Tynemouth Police Court towards the end of last year. A man named Glover, the landlord of a low public-house in Clive-street, a crimp and sailors' lodging-house keeper, was summoned under the 235th and 236th clauses of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, charged with having taken into his possession the moneys and effects of James Hall, a seaman, and with having refused to return and pay the same back to Hall when requested to do so. It appears, after being engaged in the Black Sea in the transport service during the late war, Hall, who had to receive 30 pounds 15_s._, took up his quarters at Glover's, and made him his "purser." Glover charged him 14_s._ a-week for his lodgings, the same as the Sailors' Home, but at the end of 16 days he told him that his money was all gone, and bought the plaintiff's neckerchief of him for 1_s._, which he also spent in drink. The sailor, finding himself destitute, had applied to the authorities, who summoned Glover. Glover, in his defence, stated that Hall had spent his money in drink and treating, keeping a couple of bagpipers to play to him all the time he was on the spree. Glover produced the following extraordinary account against Hall:--"Dec. 9th.--20 pints of rum, 2 pounds 6_s._ 6_d._; 20 quarts of beer, and 15 ounces of tobacco, 15_s._ 10th.--8 glasses of rum, and 2_s._ 6_d._ borrowed money, 4_s._ 6_d._ 11th.--Borrowed money, 2_s._ 6_d._; 5 pints of rum, 5 gills of rum, and 15 quarts of ale, 1 pounnd 12_s._ 6_d._; 6 ounces of tobacco, 2 glasses of gin, and 2 gills of brandy, 6_s._ 6_d._ 12th.--Cash, 2_s._, 15 pints of rum, and 28 gills of rum, 3 pounds; 4 quarts, half a gallon, and 22 gills of beer, 1 pounds 3_s._ 9_d._; 15 glasses of rum and 11 glasses of beer, 9_s._ 3_d._; pint of brandy and 16 glasses of gin, 8_s._; 36 ounces of tobacco and 3.5 glasses of gin, 12_s._ 4.5_d._ 13th.--18 pints of rum, 15 gills of rum, and 26 quarts of beer, 3 pounds 4_s._; 26 bottles of lemonade, and 28 gills of beer, 1 pounds; 14 ounces of tobacco, 6 glasses of gin, 6_s._ 2_d._; 12 glasses of gingerade, and cash 5_s._, 8_s._; 1 week's board, 14_s._ Paid for clothes, 1 pounds 2_s._ 6_d._; 2 pints of rum, 10 gills of rum, and 4 glasses of beer, 16_s._; 24 glasses of spirits, 9 quarts of beer, and 7 ounces of tobacco, 14_s._ 7_d._ 15th.--16 half glasses of spirits, 10 glasses and 2 gills of rum, and 1.5 ounce of tobacco, and beer, 2_s._ 10_d._; fortnight's board, 1 pounds 8_s._; cash, 2 pounds 18_s._; spirits, tobacco, and rum, 4_s._ 1.5_d._; cash, 5_s._ 17th.--Cash, 7_s._; 20 glasses of spirits, and 8 quarts of ale, 9_s._ 4_d._ 18th.--Ale, spirits, and tobacco, 16_s._ 4_d._ 19th.--35 glasses of spirits, and 20 glasses of ale, and 2 glasses of brandy, 1 pounds 4_s._ 10_d._ 20th.--Ale, tobacco, and cash, 7_s._ 24th, 25th, and 26th.--Ale and spirits, 7_s._ 11_d._, and other items, making up the amount in hand. The defendant had refused to deliver up Hall's clothes on the plea that the man was in his debt. Now in Ratcliffe-highway such men as Glover abound. It is unnecessary then to describe the character of the tradesmen in Ratcliffe-highway, or the character of their wares. At one shop there are the enormous boots, which only navvies and sailors have strength to wear; at another there are oilskin caps, and coats and trousers, or rough woollen shirts, piled up in gigantic masses. One shop rejoices in compasses and charts, and another in the huge silver watches which Jack invariably affects. The descendants of Abraham swarm here. They sell little fish fried in oil; they deal in second-hand clothes; they keep lodging-houses; I believe they stick at nothing to turn a penny, and don't break their hearts if the penny turns out a dishonest one. Everything has a nautical adaptation. The songs sung are nautical. The last time I was there an old woman was singing to a crowd of the "Saucy Sailor Boy" who, coming disguised in poverty to his lady love, is by her ignominiously rejected, to whom rejecting he tells of his real riches, and by whom the rejection is eagerly recalled, but in vain, for the Saucy Sailor Boy declares:--

"Do you think I am foolish, love?
Do you think I am mad,
For to wed a poor country girl,
When there's fortune to be had?

"So I'll cross the briny ocean,
Where the meadows are so green,
And since you have refused my offer, love,
Some other girl shall wear the ring."

Up and down Ratcliffe-highway do the sailors of every country under heaven stroll--Greeks and Scythians, bond and free. Uncle Tom's numerous progeny are there--Lascars, Chinese, bold Britons, swarthy Italians, sharp Yankees, fair-haired Saxons, and adventurous Danes--men who worship a hundred gods, and men who worship none. They have ploughed the stormy main, they have known the perils of a treacherous sea and of a lee shore; but there are worse perils, and those perils await them in Ratcliffe-highway. It is night, and the glare of gas gives the street a cheerful appearance. We pass the Sailor's Home, a noble institution which deserves our cordial support and praise, and find at almost every step pitfalls for poor Jack. Every few yards we come to a beer-shop or a public-house, the doors of which stand temptingly open, and from the upper room of which may be heard the sound of the mirth-inspiring violin, and the tramp of toes neither "light nor fantastic." There were public-houses here--I know not if the custom prevails now--to which was attached a crew of infamous women; these bring Jack into the house to treat them, but while Jack drinks gin the landlord gives them from another tap water, and then against their sober villany poor Jack has no chance. I fear many respectable people in this neighbourhood have thus made fortunes. Jack is prone to grog and dancing, and here they meet him at every turn. Women, wild-eyed, boisterous, with cheeks red with rouge and flabby with intemperance, decked out with dresses and ribbons of the gayest hue, are met with by hundreds--all alike equally coarse, and insolent, and unlovely in manners and appearance, but all equally resolved on victimising poor Jack. They dance with him in the beer-shop--they drink with him in the bar--they walk with him in the streets--they go with him to such places as Wilton's Music Hall, where each Jack Tar may be seen sitting with his pipe and his pot, witnessing dramatic performances not very artistic, but really, on the score of morality, not so objectionable as what I have seen applauded by an Adelphi audience, or patronised by the upper classes at her Majesty's Theatre. And thus the evening passes away; the publicans grow rich, the keepers of infamous houses fatten on their dishonest gains--obese Jews and Jewesses become more so. The grog gets into Jack's head--the unruly tongue of woman is loosened--there are quarrels, and blows, and blood drawn, and heads broken, and cries of police, and victims in abundance for the station-house, or the hospital, or the union-house, or the lunatic asylum, save when some forlorn one (and not seldom either is this the case), reft of hope or maddened by drink and shame, plunges in the muddy waters of some neighbouring dock, to find the oblivion she found not in the dancing and drinking houses of Ratcliffe-highway.

JUDGE AND JURY CLUBS.

This is a comic age in which we live. We are overdone with funny writers. The ghastliest attempts at liveliness surround us on every side. I would not bring back the grave deportment and stately etiquette of days gone by, nor could I if I would. But are we not running to another extreme? Is there not a lack of reverence and dignity? If we train up our youth to comic Blackstones, and teach them to extract fun out of the grandest history done in modern Europe--the history of the Anglo-Saxon race--of the race that has founded civil and religious liberty, and still nurses it in the face of a frowning continent, what can we expect? Men are what we make them. "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." A feeble and contemptible father is succeeded by a feeble and contemptible son. Have no grand creed of your own to make your daily path lustrous with the light of heaven. Crack your weak jest and pun at all men have reverenced. Learn from _Punch_ to titter, no matter the theme. And can you wonder that your son believes not in man's honour or woman's love--in God or the devil, but solely in the Holborn Casino and Cremorne? For instance, is not law one of the most wonderful achievements of civilisation? I do not go so far as "the judicious Hooker." I do not say with him that her seat is the throne of God, her voice the harmony of the universe, but is it not wonderful to think of the complex arrangements of which the judge seated in his robes on the bench, administering law, is the outward sign. In the first place, man must have learnt to give up a primary instinct of his nature--that of self-revenge. Then the central power in the darkest parts of the land must have become dominant. What ages must have past before law dared meddle with privilege, or before its administrators could realize the fact of the sanctity of the individual man, whether he starved in a garret or feasted in a palace. And when the judges went on circuit, with the gorgeous cavalcade of the olden time, what terror was struck into the hearts of the rustics, and how patent became to them the strength and dignity of law. Now why burlesque this? The idea is good and true, yet the burlesque is permitted and exists, aye, even to this day.

It is years since I was at a Judge and Jury Club, but I believe their character is in no degree changed. The one I speak of met in an hotel not far from Covent-garden, and was presided over by a man famous in his day for his power of _double entendre_. About nine o'clock in the evening, if you went up-stairs you would find a large room with benches capable of accommodating, I should think, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty persons. This room was generally well filled, and by their appearance the audience was one you would call respectable. The entrance fee entitled you to refreshment, and that refreshment, in the shape of intoxicating liquor, was by that time before each visitant. After waiting a few minutes, a rustle at the entrance would cause you to turn your eyes in that direction, when, heralded by a crier with a gown and a staff of office, exclaiming, "Make way for my Lord Chief Baron," that illustrious individual would be seen wending his way to his appointed seat. The man I write of was then about thirty-five, but he appeared much older, and in his robes of office and with his judicial wig had almost a venerable appearance. Having seated himself and bowed to the bar--one of them they called the double of Brougham had been a dissenting minister (he is dead now--he died "game," they told me)--the Lord Chief Baron called for "a cigar and glass of brandy and water, and, having observed that the waiter was in the room and that he hoped gentlemen would give their orders, the proceedings of the evening commenced. A jury was selected; the prosecutor opened his case, which, to suit the depraved taste of his patrons, was invariably one of seduction or crim. con. Witnesses were examined and cross-examined, the females being men dressed up in women's clothes, and everything was done that could be to pander to the lowest propensities of depraved humanity. I do not believe the audience could have stood this if it had not been for the drink. As it was, I believe many a youth fresh from home felt a little ashamed of himself that he should be in such company listening to such unmitigated ribaldry, but these reflections were soon drowned in the flowing bowl, and the lad, if he blushed at first, soon learned to laugh. I write of the time when the railway mania had filled London with overpaid engineers, and attorneys, and parliamentary witnesses, only too anxious to see life, as they called it, and by whom this beastly entertainment was frequented night after night. I dare not even attempt to give a faint outline of the proceedings. After the defence, came the summing up, which men about town told you was a model of wit, but in which the wit bore but a small proportion to the obscenity. The jury were complimented on their intelligent and lascivious appearance, all the filthy particulars which had been noticed were referred to Dog Latin, and poetical quotations were plentifully thrown in; and by twelve, amidst the plaudits of the audience, the affair, so far as the Judge and Jury Club was concerned, was over. Then there was supper for such as wished it, and an entertainment to follow, either in the shape of a concert or of an exhibition of _Poses Plastiques_. To these subsequent entertainments ladies were generally admitted--and perhaps the less I say about them or their proceedings the better. If I refer to them at all, it is but as an illustration of the drinking customs of society. These Judge and Jury Clubs after all are but an excuse for drinking. They are held at public-houses--there is drinking going on all the time the trial lasts,--nor could sober men listen unless they had the drink. I believe an attempt has been made to introduce this kind of thing to the provinces, but it has not answered. In all our provincial towns there exists a public opinion which guarantees decency to a certain extent. In the metropolis this public opinion does not exist. No one knows that I frequent Judge and Jury Clubs, and I lose no social status if I do; and some of the men who patronise them have no social status to lose. In one of the lowest beershops in the New Cut the other day I saw it announced that on Sunday night a Judge and Jury Club was held. It is too true that we are, as Tennyson says,

"Fish that love the mud,
Rising to no fancy flies."