poor comic nigger, with his banjo and his double entendre playing with all his might, in the hope that some gent will stand a cup of coffee and a muffin, can scarce raise a laugh. Timidly one asks, “Will you treat me to a cup of coffee, sir?” Yes, forlorn one. If your sin is great, so is your punishment; once you might have been a dainty little wife, and now what are you? I say it sorrowfully, the scum of the streets, garbage for drunken lust.
Let us go a little further on, not into that house, there are only thieves and pickpockets there, and we might be bullied, which is not pleasant. Ah, here’s the house we are looking for; it has done a good trade this many a year, for is there not a cab-stand opposite, and cabby knows the value of a cup of coffee on a cold winter’s night. Never mind the smell; as business is carried on uninterruptedly during the twenty-four hours, and as the company belongs to that part of the population not guilty of an inordinate attachment to soap and water, and to whom cheap baths are a myth, it cannot be matter of surprise if there be about the place “an ancient and fish-like smell.” But here comes the landlord. “Good morning, gents;”
in an under voice, “you had better mind your pocket; there are some strange characters here. A cup of coffee? Yes, sir. Now then, sir, you had better wake up, it is time for you to be off. You’ve had a good hour’s sleep.” “Why not let him sleep?” “Why, you see, sir, such fellows would stay here all night and fill up the house, and not spend a penny; and business is business.” A curious medley is here of sleepy, half-tipsy, sickly unfortunates. Yet even here the line is drawn; the door opens, and we dimly discern a mass of rags; so does our landlord, as he rushes to exclude the would-be customer. “What, you are trying it on again, are you? you know you can’t come here. Why, you see, sir, if we let such fellows in, the place would swarm with—,” (the reader must supply the blank). But we take the hint, and not unreluctantly depart.
The night public-house has, I confess,—and I am glad to do so,—lost somewhat of its popularity in latter years. At one time it was common everywhere; now it is in only a few streets that it exists and pollutes the atmosphere. In the Strand, in the Haymarket, in Oxford-street, night-houses were numerous; but the one to which I more immediately refer was situated in
the neighbourhood of Tottenham-court-road. Since then, Mr Spurgeon has been preaching in that locality, but I dare say the night-house exists nevertheless.
Let us suppose it is about two in the morning, and with the exception of one or two amiable garotters, a few sleepy police, and some three or four women, the regular population of the neighbourhood may be safely considered to have been long in bed. The gas-lamps shine almost exclusively on yourself. You look up at the windows and you see no lights save where, perhaps, poverty may be stitching for bread, or where Death may have come an unbidden guest and borne away the fairest and the best beloved. At this hour the young bride in all her beauty may be struck down in mortal agony, or the wee pet lamb, whose little silver laugh had so often dispelled the dark cloud that gathered round the home, or the grey-haired man, having just reached the goal, and achieved an independence, may find himself left in this bleak, dark, wide world alone.
Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the north wind’s breath,
And stars to set; but all—
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death.
And now let us forget all this, and knock at this door, above which streams a mellow light, and from which we hear sounds of boisterous gaiety. Is it not open yet? Then give another rap. Ah, it is all right now. “Take care of your pockets,” says Cerberus, in a low voice,—“there are some rum blokes here.” We will, my friend.
Yes, they must be rum blokes who come here into this filthy, stinking shop, and amongst this filthy, ragged, swearing crew of reprobates. If you wish to see a set of fellows whose mere looks would hang them, I think they are about us now. Even the landlord seems uncomfortable in their presence, and wisely allows as little as possible of temptation in his house or on his person. He knows, I believe, they would as soon rob him as any one else, and his small ferrety eyes are evidently wide awake. Indeed, none of the party look as if they had much honest sleep, and in the daylight, I imagine, would present a somewhat seedy appearance. We generally think cabmen not scrupulously honest, but perhaps these cabmen, with ancient great coats and well muffled up, are the honestest fellows here. Then of course there is an Irish “widder,” with
melancholy face and a string of ballads, such as “Mary Blane,” “The Red, White, and Blue,” “Cheer, boys, cheer,” all of which she is willing to dispose of on the most reasonable terms. A decayed swell, probably a railway director in the great year of bubbles, with extraordinary sponges—an article I should have thought quite as unsaleable as soap to the habitués,—and a jockey-like looking person with knives with most wonderful and unaccountable blades, or with some fancy work-boxes or other articles equally ingenious and useless. Women are here, of course, in the last stage of their profligate career, driven out of decent houses, unfit to associate with the well-dressed and the young—wrinkled, repulsive, red. As you see them drink, quarrelling, screaming, and cursing, as they always do till turned out to go God knows where, can you imagine that the difference between them and your own mother is merely that of circumstance, and education, and habit?—perhaps merely the difference produced by drink. I can tell you that little hag was once a rich man’s leman, and robed herself in silk and satin, and quaffed her costly wine; and now hark how piteously she begs a drop of gin, ere she staggers