The Mysteries of Modern London

by George R. Sims

The life dramas in which the dwellers in limelight-land play a part are often stranger, more romantic, more pathetic, than any written play in which they simulate the human emotions for the entertainment of the public.

The causes of catastrophe are many, and are often obscure. There came to me a year or two ago two sisters. They were young actresses, and wanted parts in a forthcoming play with which I wat associated. They stayed for a few minutes after I had told them that all the parts were filled; they patted my little dog, and asked to see a little white cat of which I had occasionally written in the "Referee."

They bade me a smiling good-bye, and went out, apparently in the best of spirits. A few days afterwards they were found lying dead side by side in their lodgings. They had agreed to die together, and had taken poison. Young and beautiful, with the world all before them, they had broken down almost at the outset of their career under the strain of professional disappointment.

In the days of my youth I knew intimately a famous manager in the entertainment world. He was originally a waiter in a well-known restaurant, but he had ability and pluck, and he became in time the proprietor of a famous variety palace, and some equally famous pleasure gardens. He was also a caterer and contractor on a large scale.

In the days of his prosperity he drove a six-hundred-guinea pair of horses in his phaeton, and the brougham in which he was whirled about in the evening was as well known to the public as that in which Adah Isaacs Menken drove nightly to Astley's when she was drawing all London over Westminster Bridge to see her in "Mazeppa."

Many years afterwards, when the brilliant star of the variety firmament had disappeared, and no one knew what had become of him, I was on a penny steamer on the Thames. A poor old fellow with a greasy cap on his head was waiting about and taking orders for any refreshments the passengers might require. He passed me once and looked at me earnestly. Presently he brought a bottle of beer to two men sitting by me, and then I recognized him. The man, whose name had been one to conjure with in connection with variety enterprise, was the steward of a penny steamer on the Thames.

But when we look behind the scenes of theatrical life it is not always the note of tragedy that greets us. There is a fairer and a sunnier side.

Ten years ago a young girl determined to be an actress—had made her way to London—the city of her dreams. It had been a rough journey. In the provinces she had joined a small opera company. When there was any money taken the manager obligingly gave some of it on account of salaries to the artists. When times were bad they had to go without. So it came that the finding of lodgings was a terrible task. When you have no money—and you can't take your luggage into apartments, for fear it should be kept for the rent—very few doors are open to you. In one country town the little girl, failing to get a room, went and sat in a shed in a field and cried herself to sleep there. She woke up at one in the morning with a thunder and lightning storm raging. She ran out into the roadway, and a kind policeman took her to his wife, who gave her a bed for the night.

One day, the company being near London, she left it, and, having a few shillings in her pocket, took a train which landed her at Liverpool Street. She found lodgings in the Whitechapel Road, and thought that London was a very busy place, but she didn't think the people dressed very grandly.

In the Whitechapel Reading Room she read the "Era," and saw an advertisement for chorus ladies at Earl's Court. She walked from Whitechapel to Earl's Court, and failed to see the manager. Then she walked back again, and, passing Hyde Park, went into it, and, tired and hungry and broken-hearted, sat down on a seat.