The Night Side of London
TextTHE 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 Masqués. But in England a public Bal Masqué 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 Masqué. 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 masqué 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 cafés, 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.