mother now praying for him in her dreams little imagines. She would not have sunk so low, he never would have blasted a mother’s hopes, had it not have been for the drink. Come out with me into the air. What a crowd there is round us, all looking pale and seedy in the clear light of a summer morn! What has kept them out all night? What has made them what they are but the drink? You start at that moving mass of sores and rags. I remember her fair and beautiful, richly apparelled and sumptuously fed; but the drink has been her bane, and will be, till one of these calm summer mornings she will be carried insensible to the nearest hospital, thence to be buried, unwept and unknown, in a pauper’s grave. Away from this moral dunghill. In a few hours the police will have retired, the debauchees will have gone home to bed, the oyster-houses and gin-palaces will be deserted, the place will have a serious and quiet business air, and bishops will ride past it in their cushioned carriages to make speeches at meetings for the promotion of the Gospel in foreign parts. As we go up Regent-street we see the lamps being extinguished, and the milk carts going round, and the red newspaper expresses tearing
along to catch the early train, and the green hills of Hampstead looking lovelier than ever. In the sober light of day our night in the Haymarket will seem unreal, and when we shall tell our experiences, we shall be told possibly that our picture is overdrawn.
THE CANTERBURY HALL.
“Give me the songs of the people, and you may make its laws,” said old Fletcher, of Saltoun, with a knowledge of human nature which statesmen do not frequently possess. Necessity is a stern taskmaster, and the workman in the factory, and the clerk in the counting-house, and the shopman behind the counter, are generally compelled to stick pretty close to work, and to the eye of the observer present very much the same appearance. They come at certain hours, they go at certain hours, and perform their daily toil with a certain amount of effectiveness and skill. Very little credit is due to them for this—their livelihood depends upon their being diligent and active—and hence I know little of the individual by merely witnessing him toiling for his daily bread. I must follow him home; I must be with him in his hours of relaxation; I must listen to the songs he sings and the jokes he attempts; I must see what is his idea of
pleasure, and thus only can I get at the man as he is. Even his church or chapel goings I cannot take as indications of his real nature. He may go because his parents go, because his master goes, because his friends go, because he has been trained to go, because society expects him to go,—for a hundred reasons all equally vain in the eyes of Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the reins of the children of men; but no man is a hypocrite where his pleasures are concerned. I can gather more about him from the way in which he spends his leisure hours than I can from his active employments of the day. They are poor miserable philosophers indeed, and guilty of an enormous blunder, who, in their investigation into the moral and social condition of the people, refuse to notice the amusements of the people in their hours of gaiety and ease. I make, then, no apology for introducing you to Canterbury Hall.
The Upper Marsh, Westminster-road, is what is called a low neighbourhood. It is not far from Astley’s Theatre. Right through it runs the South Western Railway, and everywhere about it are planted pawnbrokers’ shops, with an indescribable amount of dirty second-hand
clothes, and monster gin-palaces, with unlimited plate-glass and gas. Go along there what hour of the day you will, these gin-palaces are full of ragged children, hideous old women, and drunken men. “The bane and the antidote,” you may say, “are thus side by side.” True, but you forget that youth in its search for pleasure is blind, and sees not the warning till it is too late; and of the hundreds rushing on to the Canterbury Hall for a quiet glass, none think they will fall so low as the victims of intemperance reeling, cursing, fighting, blaspheming, in their path. But let us pass on. A well-lighted entrance attached to a public-house indicates that we have reached our destination. We proceed up a few stairs, along a passage lined with handsome engravings, to a bar, where we pay sixpence if we take a seat in the body of the hall, and nine-pence if we do the nobby and ascend into the balcony. We make our way leisurely along the floor of the building, which is really a very handsome hall, well lighted, and capable of holding fifteen hundred persons; the balcony extends round the room in the form of a horseshoe. At the opposite end to which we enter is the platform, on which is placed a grand piano
and a harmonium, on which the performers play in the intervals when the professional singers have left the stage. The chairman sits just beneath them. It is dull work to him; but there he must sit every night smoking cigars and drinking, from seven till twelve o’clock. I fancy I detect a little touch of rouge just on the top of his cheek; he may well need it, for even on a fine summer night like this the room is crowded, and almost every gentleman present has a pipe or a cigar in his mouth. Let us look round us; evidently the majority present are respectable mechanics, or small tradesmen with their wives and daughters and sweethearts there. Now and then you see a midshipman, or a few fast clerks and warehousemen, who confidentially inform each other that there is “no end of talent here,” and that Miss --- “is a doosed fine gal;” and here, as elsewhere, we see a few of the class of unfortunates, whose staring eyes would fain extort an admiration which their persons do not justify. Every one is smoking, and every one has a glass before him; but the class that come here are economical, and chiefly confine themselves to pipes and porter. The presence of the ladies has also a beneficial effect; I see no indication
of intoxication, and certainly none of the songs are obscene. I may question the worth of such stanzas as the following, sung by Mr R. Grover, Miss Pearce, and the whole of the company:—
Alfred.
We’ll drink to the beauty that’s beaming around,
Where Nature’s own flowers are blooming;
Where none but the voices of happiness sound,
And our pathway the love-light illumes.
We’ll drink, too, to the rosy god,
The god of love and beauty,
For all who are his vot’ries
Must tender him their duty.
We’ll drink while there’s love in the cup which we quaff,
Since’t is love o’er the world reigns supreme.Chorus.
We’ll drink to friendship firm and true,
While love the cup shall crown.Violetta.
Come, bask in the pleasure that falls to our share,
For Time on the wing’s ever flying,
And flowers of love are exotics so rare,
Their odour’s scarce shed ere ’t is flown.
Be gay, for youth must soon depart,
And even love will vanish,
The brightest scenes, alas! will fade,
And sweetest pleasures pall.
Be gay, then, while youth still untrammell’d by care
Shall invite us to joy and to love.Ah! let us join in the toast,
In the song and the revelling,
Passing the night in mirthful pleasure,
While love shall teach us how to treasure
This paradise on earth.