The Night Side of London

by J. Ewing Ritchie

a noble room! we shall not see a finer one in London. At one end is a gallery; at the other a raised platform with very comfortable seats and tables. All round the room are illustrations of oriental scenery, and over the bar is the orchestra. But the place is not so crowded as we might expect, and the visitors are quieter than in the casinos of the West; the men and women are most of them much younger,—the men, many of them, have an exceedingly juvenile appearance, and think it fine to dance with young ladies of uncertain occupations, and to drink brandy-and-water and smoke cigars; but they have yet to cut their wisdom-teeth. As Thackeray says,

“Pretty page with the dimpled chin,
That never has known the barber’s shear,
All your wish is woman to win;
This is the way that boys begin,—
Wait till you come to forty year.”

Come here in the summer-time, and the attendance is then numerous; and of a Sunday evening, on the lawn before the Barn, or in the bowers and alcoves by its side, what vows have been uttered only to be broken; and what snares have been set for youth, and beauty, and innocence; and how many have come here with gay

hearts who have left with them bruised beyond the power of man to heal! Even in this room itself, what changes have been wrought by the magic hand of time! Where are the Finsbury radicals—all beery and Chartist, who here dined; the demagogues who duped them, the hopes they cherished, the promises they made? One after another have the bubbles burst, have the leaders palpably become shams, have the people woke up to disappointment and despair; and yet the nation has yet to learn that it is only by individual righteousness its salvation can be wrought. The dancing, instead of speech-making, is a sign of the times. Accompanied as it is by less drinking, let us hope it is a favourable sign. Let us judge in the spirit of charity and hope. But let us not be too sanguine,—it was during the terrors of the French Directory, when the

“Streets ran so red with the blood of the dead,
That they blush’d like the waves of hell,”

that Paris became a city of dancers, and that the art reached a climax unknown before or since.

BOXING NIGHT.

I am rather out of conceit with Christmas boxes. I have been wished the compliments of the season by no less than six individuals this very morning, and for those good wishes I, poor man though I be, with family of my own to work for, have had to pay half-a-crown each. I grow suspicious of every smiling face I meet. I walk with my hands in my pocket, and my eyes cast down. I wonder how it fares with my strong-minded wife at home. I know she will have had a rare battle to fight. She will have had the Postman—and the Dustman—and the Waits—and the Sweep—and the Turncock—and the Lamplighter—and the Grocer’s lad—and the Butcher’s boy; and if she compounds with them at the rate of a shilling a-piece, she may bless her stars. I feel that I cannot stand much of this kind of work, and that for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year I shall have to pay rather handsomely. Stop at home—tie up your

knockers—say you are sick or dead, or a shareholder in the Royal British Bank, still you cannot escape the tender mercies of a London Boxing day. Mind, I have not one word to say of the various good wishes and gifts offered by friends and relatives to each other as pledges of esteem and goodwill. I would be the last to find fault with the customs originating in the warm heart of love, and honoured by the sanction of the whole civilized world. By all means let us reverence them ten-fold. But I have a right to complain that I am compelled to pay for mercenary goodwill, and that on me, or such as me, a tax is levied which does no good in most cases, and frequently does an immense amount of harm. When I read, as I am sure to do, in the police reports of the next day, that, “yesterday, being the day after Boxing day, the time of the magistrates was chiefly occupied with cases of drunkenness,” am I not right in wishing that I had kept the money in my own pocket? Some of my friends would do that, but then for the next twelve months they are hampered and inconvenienced in a thousand ways. As a wise man, I choose the least of two evils, but I am an unwilling victim nevertheless. But

a truce to my meditations; let us look at London on a Boxing night. By daylight you would scarce know London. A new race seems to have invaded the streets, filled the omnibuses, swarmed in the bazaars and the Arcade, choked up the eating-houses and the beer-shops. Smith with his Balmoral boots, Brown with his all-round collar, Jones with his Noah’s Ark coat, Robinson with the straight tile, which young England deems the cheese, delight us no more with their snobby appearance and gentish airs; to-day this is the poor man’s holiday. You can tell him by the awkwardness with which he wears his Sunday clothes, by the startling colour of his ties, by the audacious appearance of his waistcoat. If he would only dress as a gentleman dresses, he would look as well, but he must be fine. Well, it matters little so long as he be happy, whether he is so or not; and let him pass with his wife and children, all full of wonder and delight as they stare in at the shop windows and think everything—how happy are they in the delusion!—that all that glitter is gold. Let us wish them a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.