In 1863 the “Eldorado” Café Chantant, which was leading a precarious existence, put up the shutters, when a section of the (non-speculative) public made the brilliant, loyal, and dutiful suggestion that somebody should erect a “Denmark” Winter Garden as a memento of the Prince of Wales’s recent marriage, but the loyal, dutiful, sycophantic proposal did not commend itself as it no doubt ought to have done, and probably would to-day. The requisite capital was not forthcoming, and so not till 1873 did the new era commence, when £50,000 was offered for the Square by that monument of aspiring greatness, “Baron” Grant, who burst upon the horizon and then fizzled into space as meteors are wont to do.
It is impossible to deny the fascination that Leicester Square has for a considerable majority of Londoners. Up to the days of Charles II. the entire space was composed of rustic hedge-rows and lanes. Then Castle Street, Newport Street, Cranbourne Alley, and Bear Lane came into existence, the Square was railed round, and all the chief duels of the day were fought within its historic precincts.
Lord Warwick, Lord Mountford, the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Mohun (a professional bully and expert shot), and a host of smaller fry have avenged their honour within its boundaries—and then adjourned to Locket’s Coffee House in its immediate vicinity. This ancient institution must not be confused with the palatial establishments known as Lockhart’s.
In the days of which we are writing, Leicester Square was a barren waste surrounded by rusty railings, trodden down in all directions; refuse of every description was shot into it, whilst in the centre stood a dilapidated equestrian statue that assumed various adornments as the freaks of drunken roysterers suggested. On the north side (where now stands the Empire) was The Shades, a low-class eating-house in the basement, approached by steps, where every knife, fork and spoon was indelibly stamped “Stolen from The Shades” as a delicate hint to its patrons. On the opposite side stood a huge wooden pump, of which more anon. At the adjoining eastern corner were the “tableaux vivants,” presided over by a judge in “wig and gown” where more blasphemy and filth was to be heard for a shilling than would appear possible, all within one hundred yards of such harmless (if disreputable) haunts as Kate Hamilton’s, which were overhauled nightly. It was many years afterwards (July, 1874) that the barren wilderness was made beautiful for ever by the generosity of “Baron” Grant. One can see him now, arrayed in white waistcoat and huge buttonhole, accompanied by an unpretentious bevy of councillors and Board of Works men, over whom a few bits of bunting fluttered, presenting his gift of many thousands in a speech that was quite inaudible. But, like medals and decorations, gifts in those days were not rewarded in the lavish manner of to-day. Had such a public benefit been conferred now, the donor would have been dubbed a baronet, or a privy councillor at least, with every prospect of a peerage should he again spring £20,000. Apropos of this gift, there was a peculiar sequel. When asked at the time whether he gave or retained the underground rights in addition to the recreation ground, the great man, in the zenith of his success, replied, “Yes, yes; I give it all.” Years after, however, when poor and friendless, hearing that underground works had made the subsoil more valuable than the surface, he enquired whether some remnant could not be claimed by him, but was forcibly reminded of the follies of his youth by a prompt negative, and left to die in penury without a helping hand.
Perhaps never was the irony of Fate more clearly exemplified than when, years after, two yokels who were gazing on Shakespeare’s monument were heard to say “That’s ’im as give the place.”
Situated exactly on the site of the Criterion Buffet was the “Pic,” a dancing saloon of a decidedly inferior class, where anybody entering (except perhaps the Angel Gabriel) was bound to have a row. Hat smashing in this delectable spot was the preliminary to a scrimmage, and when it is recollected what “hats” were in the long-ago sixties, it will be easily understood that any interference with them was an offence to be wiped out only with blood. Hats, it may be asserted without fear of contradiction, were the Alpha and Omega of dress amongst every section of the community; the postmen wore hats with their long scarlet coats; policemen wore hats with their swallow-tails; boys the height of fourpence in copper wore hats; the entire field at a cricket match wore flannels and hats; and the yokels and agricultural classes topped their smocks with hats. Not hats, be it understood, of the modern silky limited style, but huge extinguishers, with piles varying from solid beaver to the substance of a terrier’s coat; and to enter the “Pic” was tantamount to the annihilation of one of these creations. The “Kangaroo,” of whom mention is made elsewhere, was a standing dish at this establishment, and to such an extent was his position recognised that many men tipped him on entering to obviate molestation.
The “Pic,” despite its central position, never attained popularity, and was the resort of pickpockets, bullies, and “soiled doves” of a very mediocre class. On Boat Race nights, however, an organised gang of University “men” invariably raided it, and by smashing everything balanced the account to a certain extent.
No place of amusement has passed through so many convulsions as the edifice now known as the Alhambra. Erected in the sixties, it began life as a species of polytechnic, where it was hoped that the instruction afforded by the contemplation of two electric batteries and a diving bell, in conjunction with the exhilarating air of the neighbourhood, would attract sufficient audiences to meet rent and expenses; but the venture not having fulfilled the expectations of its youth, its portals were closed, and it next came into prominence during the Franco-German war. Here “patriotic songs” were the pièce de résistance, and towards 11 o’clock a dense throng waved flags and cheered and hooted indiscriminately the “Marseillaise,” the “Wacht am Rhein,” and everything and everybody. Jones, calmly smoking, would, without the slightest provocation, assault Brown, who was similarly innocently occupied, and who in turn resented the polite distinction. Stand-up fights took place nightly, and, as was anticipated, drew all London to the Alhambra towards 11 o’clock.
These indiscriminate nightly riots attracted, as may be assumed, all the bullies and sharpers in London, amongst whom stands prominently the “Kangaroo,” a gigantic black, who was known to everybody in the sixties. This ruffian, who was admittedly an expert pugilist, was the biggest coward that hovered round Piccadilly. No place was free from his unwelcome visits, and his ubiquity showed itself by his nightly appearance at the Pavilion, the Alhambra, the Café Riche, Barnes’s, the “Pic,” the Blue Posts, the Argyll, and Cremorne. From such places as Evans’s and Mott’s he was absolutely barred, and the moral effect of the reception he would have received deterred him—in his wisdom—from making the attempt.
His modus operandi was simplicity itself; seating himself at some inoffensive man’s table, he helped himself to anything he might find within reach; if remonstrated with, he knocked the remonstrator down, and coolly walked out of the room.