But there are certain incidents, as I said in an earlier part of this chapter, which have never before been made public, and which I had some difficulty in obtaining my friend's permission to record.
This Lusby's Music Hall was, without doubt, a sink of iniquity. It was notorious in the locality, but it also spread its evil tentacles westwards. The well-to-do, foolish, and drunken young "bloods" of the period—I believe "masher" was their designation at the time—used to drive down in cabs from Piccadilly and haunt Lusby's in pursuit of the girls of the East End. It was a new sensation. It provided an evening's amusement quite out of the common.
One night during Mr. Charrington's campaign, five young men arrived from the West End in evening dress. As they were entering the music hall, Mr. Charrington and his friends spoke to them in no uncertain way. I have been told—and I feel quite sure—that the remonstrances addressed to them were made in the most quiet, gentlemanly, and unobtrusive manner. At any rate, these people were horribly enraged. There are two things you must not do if you wish to be popular with worldly men. You must not wound any man's vanity, and you must not interfere with his guilty pleasures.
Charrington and Ion Keith-Falconer, both of them men of breeding and position themselves, hit these young aristocrats from Piccadilly too hard. A remonstrance from some earnest but illiterate tub-thumper might have been passed by with a light laugh, or at most a sneer. In this case an evil and malignant anger was aroused. These young men were again accosted, and their resentment was thereby heightened to fever heat.
With faces flushed with drink, their eyes blazing with anger, they advanced to the young evangelist, loudly expressing their determination to "do for him."
Then occurred, in an instant, one of the most pathetic and dramatic things of which I have ever heard.
Several wretched girls, who had been with these young men, plying their dreadful trade and hoping to reap a richer reward than usual, turned round upon their patrons.
They made a ring round Frederick Charrington, snarling like tigresses, and using—so Mr. Charrington has told me—the most appalling and awful language it is possible to conceive.
They told the young men from the West End that they would tear them to pieces rather than that they should touch a single hair of Mr. Charrington's head.
It all occurred out in the public street, and only a Zola could describe the occurrence as it really happened. What I myself have heard from Mr. Charrington is horrible enough. These poor women must indeed at that moment have been inspired by something beyond their knowledge or understanding.