Now this is very far from being the fact. The extent to which the Haymarket haunts are criminal is equalled, and in many cases far excelled, in a dozen different parts of London every night between the hours of ten and one—and that without remonstrance or hindrance on the part of the police authorities or anyone else. I allude to the London music-halls. One of the most disreputable was burnt down the other day; and it would be a matter for rejoicing—for public thanksgiving almost—if the score or so of similar places of popular amusement, polluting every quarter of the metropolis, shared a similar fate. To be sure, the music-halls keep within the letter of the law in the matter of closing their doors before one o’clock; but in every other respect their operation is as mischievous as any of the prosecuted dens at the West-end. And I beg of the reader to distinctly understand that I am not quoting from hearsay. There is not a single music-hall—from the vast “Alhambra” in Leicester-square, to the unaristocratic establishment in the neighbourhood of Leather-lane, originally christened the “Raglan,” but more popularly known as the “Rag”—that I have not visited. And I am bound to confess that the same damning elements are discoverable in one and all.
At the same time it must be admitted—shameful and disgraceful as the admission is—that it is not the music-hall of the vulgar East-end or “over the water” that presents in special prominence the peculiar features here spoken of, and which, in plain language, are licentiousness and prostitution. He who would witness the perfection to which these twin curses may be wrought under the fostering influences of “music,” &c., must visit the west, and not the east or south, of the metropolis. He must make a journey to Leicester-square, and to the gorgeous and palatial Alhambra there to be found. What he will there discover will open his eyes to what a farcical thing the law is, and how within the hour it will strain at gnats, and bolt entire camels without so much as a wry face or a wince, or a wink even.
I speak fearlessly, because all that I describe may be witnessed to-night, to-morrow, any time, by the individual adventurous and curious enough to go and see for himself. There is no fear of his missing it; no chance of his fixing on a wrong night. It is always the same at the music-hall. Its meat is other men’s poison; and it can fatten and prosper while honesty starves. The bane and curse of society is its main support; and to introduce the purging besom would be to ruin the business.
At the same time, I would wish it to be distinctly understood, that I do not desire to convey to the reader the impression that the numerical majority of music-hall frequenters are persons of immoral tendencies. On the contrary, I am well convinced that such places are the resort of a vast number of the most respectable portion of the working-class. This, I believe, is a fact carefully treasured by music-hall proprietors, and elaborately displayed by them whenever their morality is attacked. They point to the well-filled body of the hall, the sixpenny part, where artisans and working-men congregate, and not unfrequently bring with them their wives and daughters; and triumphantly inquire, “Is it likely that the music-hall can be what slanderers represent, when it is so patronised?” And it is quite true that a very large number of honest and intelligent folk are attracted thither in search of harmless amusement. Let them bless God for their ignorance of the world’s wicked ways if they succeed in finding it. It is not impossible. Provided they look neither to the right nor left of them, but pay their sixpence at the door, and march to the seats apportioned them; and, still at eyes right, direct their gaze and their organs of hearing towards the stage, from which the modern “comic vocalist” doles out to a stolen tune feeble jingling idiotcies of “his own composing,”—if they are steadfast to this, they may come away not much the worse for the evening’s entertainment. But let him not look about him, especially if he have his wife or daughters with him, or he may find himself tingling with a feeling it was never his misfortune to experience before.
The honest believer in the harmlessness of music-halls would, if he looked about him as he sat in the sixpenny “pit,” discover in more quarters than one that which would open his innocent eyes. If his vision were directed upwards towards the boxes and balconies, there he would discover it. Brazen-faced women blazoned in tawdry finely, and curled and painted, openly and without disguise bestowing their blandishments on “spoony” young swells of the “commercial” and shopman type, for the sake of the shilling’s-worth of brandy-and-water that steams before them, and in prospect of future advantages. There is no mistaking these women. They do not go there to be mistaken. They make no more disguise of their profession than do cattle-drovers in the public markets. They are there in pursuit of their ordinary calling, and, splendid creatures though they appear, it is curious to witness the supreme indifference to them of the door-keepers as they flaunt past them. It makes good the old proverb about the familiarity that breeds contempt; besides, as a customer in simple, the painted free-drinking lady is not desirable. I should not for a moment wish to impute without substantial proof so dastardly a feature of “business” to any spirited music-hall proprietor in particular; but I am positively assured by those who should know, that on certain recognised nights loose women are admitted to these places without payment. I know as a fact, too, that it is no uncommon thing for these female music-hall frequenters to enlist the services of cabmen on “spec,” the latter conveying their “fare” to the Alhambra or the Philharmonic without present payment, on the chance that she will in the course of the evening “pick up a flat,” who will with the lady require his services to drive them to the Haymarket or elsewhere. How much of extortion and robbery may be committed under such a convenient cloak it is not difficult to guess. The evidence not being quite so unobjectionable as it might be, I will not mention names; but I was recently informed with apparent sincerity by one of those poor bedizened unfortunates—a “dress lodger” possibly—that a certain music-hall proprietor issued to women of her class “weekly tickets” at half-price, the main condition attaching to the advantage being that the holder did not “ply” in the low-priced parts of the hall; that is to say, amongst those who could afford to pay for nothing more expensive than pints of beer.
But it is at the refreshment-bars of these palatial shams and impostures, as midnight and closing time approaches, that profligacy may be seen reigning rampant. Generally at one end of the hall is a long strip of metal counter, behind which superbly-attired barmaids vend strong liquors. Besides these there are “snuggeries,” or small private apartments, to which bashful gentlemen desirous of sharing a bottle of wine with a recent acquaintance may retire. But the unblushing immodesty of the place concentrates at this long bar. Any night may here be found dozens of prostitutes enticing simpletons to drink, while the men who are not simpletons hang about, smoking pipes and cigars, and merely sipping, not drinking deeply, and with watchful wary eyes on the pretty game of fox-and-goose that is being played all round about them. No one molests them, or hints that their behaviour is at variance with “the second and third of Victoria, cap. 47.” Here they are in dozens, in scores, prostitutes every one, doing exactly as they do at the infamous and prosecuted Haymarket dens, and no one interferes. I say, doing all that the Haymarket woman does; and it must be so, since the gay patroness of the music-halls does simply all she can to lure the dupe she may at the moment have in tow. She entices him to drink; she drinks with him: she ogles, and winks, and whispers, and encourages like behaviour on his part, her main undisguised object being to induce him to prolong the companionship after the glaring gaslight of the liquor-bar is lowered, and its customers are shown to the outer door. If that is not “knowingly suffering prostitutes to meet together” for the more convenient prosecution of their horrible trade, what else is it? And yet the cunning schemes and contrivances for misleading and throwing dust in the eyes of the police are not practised here. There are no scouts and “bells,” the former causing the latter to chime a warning on the approach of the enemy. The enemy, the police, that is to say, are on the spot. In almost every case there will be found in the music-hall lobby an intelligent liveried guardian of the public peace, here stationed that he may take cognisance of suspicious-looking persons, and eject improper characters. Should he happen, as is most likely, to be a policeman whose “beat” is in the neighbourhood, he will by sight be quite familiar with every loose woman who for a mile round in the streets plies her lawless trade. He recognises them, as with a nod of old acquaintance they pass the money-taker; he saunters to the bar, where the women gather to prime their prey, and he witnesses their doings, but he takes no notice, and never complains.
To be sure, the man is not to blame; were he ordered to disperse congregations of prostitutes wherever he found them, and to warn the persons who dispense liquors to them—just as is expected of him in the case of the ordinary public-house—that they are harbouring bad characters, and must cease to do so, undoubtedly the policeman would perform his duty. Until he receives express orders on the subject, however, he is helpless, and very properly so. Although one would desire to see ample powers for the suppression of prostitution placed in the hands of the police, it is highly necessary that the said power, in the hands of ordinary constable X, should be scrupulously watched by those who are set in authority over him. Policemen make sad mistakes at times, as witness the following monstrous instance, furnished by the police-reports not more than a month since:
At Southwark, Mrs. Catherine C—, aged twenty-eight, the wife of a respectable man in the employ of the South-Eastern Railway Company, but who was described on the charge-sheet as a prostitute, was charged by Jas. Benstead, police-constable 17 M Reserve, with soliciting prostitution near the London-bridge railway terminus. The constable said that about ten o’clock on the previous night he was on duty near the railway terminus, when he saw the prisoner accost a gentleman. Believing her to be a prostitute, he went up to the gentleman, and from what he said he took her into custody for soliciting him. The prisoner here said she had been most cruelly used. She was a respectable married woman, and lived with her husband in the Drummond-road, Bermondsey. She had been to see her sister at Peckham, and had a return-ticket for the Spa-road; but when she arrived at the London-bridge terminus, she was too late for the train; consequently she determined to walk home, and as soon as she turned into Duke-street, a gentleman stopped her and asked her whether there was an omnibus left there for Whitechapel. She told him she did not know, and as soon as he left, the constable came up and took her into custody. She had been locked up all night. The prisoner here produced the half of a return-ticket for the magistrate’s inspection. The husband of the prisoner said he was in the employ of the South-Eastern Railway Company, and resided at No. 190 Drummond-road, Bermondsey. His wife left home on the previous afternoon to visit her sister at Peckham, and he expected her home at ten o’clock. He was surprised at her absence, and as soon as he ascertained she was locked up, he went to the police-station, but was not permitted to see her. He could produce several witnesses to prove the respectability of his wife. Mr. Burcham ordered the prisoner to be discharged immediately.
And so terminated the case as far as the magistrate was concerned; but one cannot help feeling curious to know whether no more was done in the matter. The outraged and cruelly-used woman was discharged, but was Reserve-constable James Benstead permitted to retain his situation in the police-force? How did the monstrous “mistake” arise? It is evident that the poor young woman spoke the truth; Mr. Burcham settled that point by ordering her immediate discharge. From any point of view, James Benstead showed himself utterly unworthy to remain a constable. In interfering with a decently-dressed woman, who must have been a stranger to him, simply because he saw her “accost a gentleman,” he exhibited himself in the light of an over-zealous blockhead. If the woman’s statement is to be believed, he told a wicked and malicious lie when he said that he took her into custody “on account of what the gentleman told him.” Where one is left in the dark, to solve a mystery as one best may, it is not impossible that one may guess wide of the mark; but it will under such conditions occur to the recollection that before now “unfortunates,” new to the life, have given deadly offence to policemen by not “paying their footing,” as black-mail of a certain abominable kind is called; and blundering James Benstead may have sustained a pecuniary disappointment. It is to be sincerely hoped that that secret tribunal before which erring policemen are arraigned (where is it?) will not let so flagrant a case pass without notice; and if, after close investigation, policeman James Benstead is proved to be the dangerous person he appears, that he may be promptly stripped of his official uniform. Even supposing that James Benstead is nothing worse than a blundering Jack-in-office, he is just of the sort to bring the law into contempt and ridicule, and the sooner he is cashiered the better.