The man mentioned the name of a certain music hall, and his earnestness of demeanour, his profound sorrow, gave Mr. Charrington food for thought. He had known, of course, that the music halls of those days were centres of evil. Now he came to think that the evil might be even greater than he had previously imagined.
It must be remembered that I am writing of a time quite remote from the present.
I know little of the music halls of to-day, though once or twice I have watched a spectacle of shifting colour and extraordinary grace, accompanied by lovely music, at a certain palace of amusement in the West End.
I know nothing more than this—personally—but, from inquiries, I am well aware that the music halls of to-day are very much improved for the better. And, as I read in my daily paper that His Majesty the King, accompanied by his court, has witnessed a performance at the chief music hall of London, it seems obvious that these places are nothing like what they used to be. So, in reading of this Homeric contest made by Frederick Charrington, you must transport yourselves into the past, and realise that I am speaking of old days.
While Mr. Charrington's attention was being drawn to the music halls of the East End—by the incident previously referred to—an American friend of his came into his house one evening, and said, in great agitation, "I have just seen a horrible thing. I was passing the door of a music hall when a man, with a girl upon his arm, was just entering the gates. I saw a woman, evidently his wife—for she had a wedding ring on her finger, and recognised him at once—rush up to this man and cry out, 'Oh, John, whom have you got there?' The man hesitated for a moment, and as he did so, the girl left his arm and rushed inside the place.
"The man turned his head, looked at his wife with an evil expression, and then hurried in after his companion. The poor wife naturally attempted to follow them both, but the man in uniform at the door stretched out both his arms and stopped her, saying, 'Oh, no, we don't want you in here.'"
This new incident stirred Mr. Charrington's indignation afresh, and he thought, "If this is a fair sample, these places ought to be called music hells instead of music halls."
He determined to see for himself whether this was an isolated case or not. Further investigations proved that it was not so, as I shall shortly show.
He soon found out what the character of these places really was, but, believing that most people were ignorant of their horrible character, he began active steps immediately.
The first thing he did was to see what powers the law could enforce in cases of the kind. He found that the law was quite strong enough to deal with them, as a clause existed to the effect that any person could be dealt with who harboured prostitutes; for the purpose of prostitution or not.