[-59-]
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, [-60-] 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 [-61-] 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 [-62-] 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 [-63-] 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 deceney 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
[-64-] 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 [-65-]
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 dung- hill. 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 [-66-]
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.