But they have a good time at these theaters. To hear a woman sing a slang song dressed—or rather undressed—is not calculated to inflict much wear and tear upon the mind, and as all the performances are of the alleged humorous order there is abundant room for chaff and talk of like cheerful nature, which is further aided and promoted by the consumption of beer. The parties seem to enjoy it, and I presume they do.
The low Londoner has very brutal tastes. His greatest delight is a prize fight; a dog fight comes next in his estimation; a rat pit is satisfactory in default of anything more bloody; a cock-fight will answer as an appetizer; and a horse race is pleasing, though that shades up into something too near respectability for him.
A dog fight in London is a sight that is worth seeing just once, if studies of inhuman nature are what you want. The arena is always behind a “sporting public,” on whose tables in the parlor you shall always find the flash and sporting papers of the metropolis, and the walls of which are decorated with engravings of prize fights, portraits of famous dogs, and highly colored lithographs of noted horse encounters.
Gathered around the arena will be a hundred or more of “the fancy,” who were to me anything but fancy. They are the broad-jawed, soap-locked, sturdy brutes, of the Bill Sykes type, beer-bloated and gin-inflamed, who subsist by practices which, if not absolutely criminal, come as close to it as possible.
The dogs are of the English bull variety, those plucky, tenacious brutes who will die rather than yield, or even make any manifestation of pain.
At the signal the brute dogs are let loose upon each other, the human dogs about expressing the keenest possible delight at any especial and exceedingly bloody performance. The highest pleasure is attained, and the wildest enthusiasm is evoked, when one dog gets the shoulder or jaw of the other in his iron jaws, and holds it there, while the other literally eats him up. Then wagers are laid as to which will hold out the longest, and every movement is watched with the keenest solicitude, and when the bloody drama ends in the death of one or both, and the wagers are settled, the conversation flows naturally into a dog channel, and the victories and defeats of past years are discussed, much as soldiers discuss their achievements.
PUNCH AND JUDY.
Dogs of this breed, of approved courage and strength, are of great value, and large sums of money are hazarded upon their performances. The aristocratic dog fanciers can have a private match made for them at any time for from one to five pounds.
Of course there are any quantity of aquariums and menageries, and institutions of a supposed usefully scientific nature, which are largely attended, but the variety theater, or music hall, as it is called, is the stock amusement of the Londoner. He can drink to better advantage in them than anywhere else, and that, after all, is the principal business of his life.
The street amusements are beyond any possibility of enumeration or description. You will not walk a dozen blocks without seeing the very absurd and very brutal Punch and Judy, which has delighted England for centuries, and seems to be immortal. One would naturally suppose that when a boy had laughed at two wooden figures manipulated by a man inside of a box, knocking each other on the head, with squeaks and idiotic dialogue, every day up to his twenty-first year, would naturally pass it by ever afterward, but it is not so. I have seen venerable men, who were doubtless bank presidents or clergymen, or something of the eminently respectable kind, stop in front of a Punch and Judy show, and laugh as heartily at the ancient performance as they did when they were boys in roundabouts. And they would stand out the performance, and at its conclusion give the performer their two pence, and go away as if they had been amused.