Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life

by Daniel Joseph Kirwan

THE OLD SINNER.

"You see, sir, these gals as is down here in the Canteen only gets ten to sixteen shillin' a week for their night's work, and that isn't much. They is only the figurantys, and can't dance a bit; but they gets a bad fashion from the swells who go behind the scenes a drinkin' champagne and sich like, and that fashion leads them to wuss nor hannything that you'll see 'ere. They comes down here and drinks between the balley, and then goes hup on to the stage and dances again, and comes down hagain after the next balley, and by the time the Alhambra closes they are so blessed tight that they are ready for hanythink. I means, of course, the gals as is innocent yet; but the old hands are werry knowin' cards, so they is, bless you."

"That little gal as is just now a takin' that gentleman's address is a werry downy gal, she is. They calls her the 'Daisy,' because she has a fondness for bokays, and she is hup to all sorts of games. She 'ad some kind of a heddykation, when she was a little gal, and I thinks she was a governess or sich like once, and went to the dogs through somebody's fault; and she writes a beautiful hand, she does, and her little game is to send letters to strangers who visit London for the first time and don't know what to do with their money, and full of affekshun and such gammon—and tells them, in the writin' as 'ow she seed better days and axes their parding for givin' so much trouble—and 'opes they won't think the wuss of her for such freedom or liberty; and then she gets a few pun from the spooney, and she goes on a habsolutely hawful drunk for a few days and doesn't come to the rehearsal—and when the money is all spent she writes more letters and 'umbugs some other spoon. Oh, she is werry deep, is the 'Daisy.'"

The "Tulip," the other young girl, according to the story of the policeman, was famous for her aptitude in swearing and drinking "Stout"; otherwise there was nothing of special interest in her character, and her face, though a pretty one, was strongly marked with lines of dissipation. By the time that I was ready to leave the Canteen, having seen all that was worth seeing in the den (for it is a den, and nothing else) which has been the cause of many a promising youth's ruin, it was nearly eleven o'clock.

THE SIX PENNY GALLERY.

We paid another shilling to go up in the "Gallery," where there is not the slightest disguise in the conduct of the females who throng the place. Back of the gallery, in the corridors, where the performance can be seen over the heads of the men who stand in front, are ranged a number of bars, and at each end of this place, which forms a kind of saloon, small tables with marble tops. At these tables a number of men and women sat and drank and laughed, and told each other anecdotes more pointed than polished in their application. The clamor and the smoke made the place unbearable, and the strains of music from the orchestra, playing Weber's "Last Waltz," filled the vast building with its circular galleries, that were heaped one upon another, to the ceiling. Up in the highest gallery of all, where the admittance is only sixpence, the riff-raff were collected. When a woman goes to the six-penny gallery in the Alhambra she is indeed lost beyond all hope of rescue.

I came down disgusted, and on going below stairs to the first tier I found there a kid glove, fan, and bouquet stand. It is the fashion for the young men of this pious city of London, who have more money than brains, when they visit the Alhambra, to buy kid gloves or fans for the unfortunates who throng the place. Quite a trade is done in this way, as some of the swells are not satisfied, when intoxicated, unless they can prevail upon their feminine friends to accept of a slight trifle of their esteem in the shape of a dozen pairs of fine kids in a gilt box. The man at the glove stand told me that business in the season—when people came home from the Continent—was very brisk, and he said that in one night he had sold as many as nineteen dozen kids to be presented to the Formosas of the place.

The detective said to me as we went down stairs: "Suppose we go to the Argyle, in the 'Aymarket, and then finish with the Casino and Barnes's; they'll be very lively just now, I warrant ye, and the fun grows furious near midnight." I assented to this proposal, and we took a cab and went to the Argyle Rooms. The cabby put his tongue in his cheek when I said "Argyle Rooms," and drove us there. I gave him eighteen pence, and he desired to know if I didn't want to borrow the price of admission, because I refused to give him half a crown for a ride of a thousand feet.