In America this sort of being exists, but it is herded somewhere out of sight. It does not stand at the bars in the best streets to offend the eyes of decent people. But it is everywhere here. It is in the Strand and on Piccadilly and Regent street.
The average Englishman of the lower, and even the middle classes, dearly loves to booze. Drunkenness is not the result either of conviviality or desperation as it is in other countries. It is the one thing longed for and set deliberately about.
THE POOR MAN IS SICK.
Rare John Leech, illustrated it in his picture in Punch, years ago. A man was lying very drunk at the foot of a lamp-post. A benevolent old lady of the Exeter Hall school seeing him, called a cabman. “The poor man is sick,” quoth the kindly dame, “why don’t you help him?” “Sick, is he,” replied cabby, “sick! don’t I vish I ’ad just ’arf of vot ails him?” The cabby spoke the honest sentiment of his heart. The Londoner of his class loves it for the effect it has upon him, and as he accomplishes his design with English gin, he carries with him a breath that suggests the tomb of a not very ancient king, a breath which has a density, a center, as one might say.