Bohemian Days in Fleet Street

by William Mackay

Charles Morton, whose name must be imperishably associated with the transformation of the halls, was the least professional-looking manager in London. He was of short stature, wore ginger-coloured side-whiskers, dressed in a frock-coat and silk hat, and affected gold pince-nez. Asked to guess at his calling in life, a stranger would probably have put him down as the owner of a large suburban drapery establishment, who acted on Sundays as sidesman at the nearest church. And, truth to tell, Morton’s innate sense of decorum was so strong that his demeanour in the halls over which he presided would have done credit to a churchwarden. No man was ever half so respectable as Charlie Morton looked. His work was none the less efficient and permanent on that account. And it is satisfactory to reflect that he who had commenced the crusade against pornography at the Canterbury, on the other side of the water, should have lived to preside for years over the fortunes of the Palace, in the heart of the West End.

In the seventies the Alhambra was not reckoned—as it is to-day—among the “’alls.” The Empire and kindred establishments were as yet undreamt of by the pleasure-hunter. And the Alhambra was a thing apart. Leicester Square, on the eastern side of which it is situated, was then the most disreputable spot of earth to be found in the centre of any capital in Europe. Here on the sunniest summer days might be found promenading some of the most villainous adventurers from the capitals of Europe. They cloaked themselves like brigands, glared at the passing shop-girls with wicked black eyes, twirled their fierce moustaches, and rolled cigarettes with a diligence which they gave to no other innocent pursuit. They were the off-scourings of Europe. The swindlers, gamblers, political rogues, the souteneurs, the craven shirkers of conscription, the European riff-raff that chooses London as its favourite dumping-ground, were all to be found promenading in Leicester Square. John Leech has fixed the type in the pages of Punch. The interesting émigré may still be detected prowling about the vicinity. But he is a wonderfully ameliorated brigand—a tame and nearly normal invader. The improvement in the enclosure itself accounts for this. The squalor in which he throve as in his native element has gone. And the picturesque but filthy villain has happily gone with it. The “Lee-cess-tare Squar” of my salad days is no more!

The paling that surrounded the gardens in the centre of the square had been broken down. It became the receptacle of the least sanitary parts of the rubbish of the neighbourhood. And as the rubbish-heaps increased, augmented by contributions of dead dog and dead cat, the gamins of the place found it become more and more desirable as a rallying-point and a playground. A statue of one of the Georges bestrode an adipose charger (fearfully out of drawing) on a pedestal in the centre of the enclosure. Everything of a humorous and adventurous kind which took place in the West End in those days was put down to the medical students of the Metropolis. After a night of dense fog, the public passing through the square discovered that the King’s steed had been given a coat of white paint relieved by black spots. On another foggy night the same body of roisterers—or another—unhorsed the monarch, and broke him into pieces, scattering his remains on the ground; for the effigy was not carved out of marble, but was a case of moulded metal. The monarch was discovered to be a hollow mockery. For a time the spotted horse dominated the squalid enclosure, grotesque and riderless.

Then Baron Grant appeared upon the scene, and proceeded to abate this Metropolitan nuisance. Grant was a company-promoter of the well-known type. His real name was Gottheimer; and he sought, but failed to obtain, a seat in Parliament as a Member of one of the London divisions. He built an enormous house in Kensington, known as “Grant’s Folly.” Before the mansion was finished the owner went “broke,” and, as it was not found suited to the requirements of any of the few millionaires then in need of a town-house, it was pulled down and the materials sold. The marble pillars supporting the ceiling in the hall of “Grant’s Folly” now adorn the grill-room of the Holborn Restaurant. Grant, having obtained the necessary permission, set about the task of converting Leicester Square into a beauty-spot. He hoped, and, indeed, believed, that it would be opened to the public by Royalty, and that he would be rewarded with an English title. He desired, also, to further his designs on a Metropolitan electorate. He was disappointed in both directions; and his subsequent bankruptcy showed that both the Queen and the wooed constituency exercised foresight in disregarding his claims.

But, whatever the Baron’s motives may have been, Londoners owe him a considerable debt of gratitude in respect of the transformation of the most disreputable public square in all Europe. At no time has London shown itself over-anxious to acknowledge the obligation, and to-day it has probably forgotten all about its dead benefactor. I knew the Baron quite well. He was a dapper, well-groomed, ambitious little man. Had the tide not turned and swept him off his feet, he would have gained admission to the House of Commons—one of the few associations of English gentlemen by whom promoters of the Baron Grant type are not merely tolerated, but even made welcome.

Amid the filth and squalor of the un-reformed square the high edifice of the Alhambra rose, giving the absent touch of the Orient to a locality sheltering many swarthy sons of the East. And there was something Oriental in the entertainment, the chief feature of which was ballet. In the seventies, and before the coming of the Empire and kindred palaces, every man-about-town dropped in at the Alhambra at least once during the week. He was sure to find himself among friends. And in case that did not happen, he had offered to him the easy opportunity of picking one up. The establishment was owned by a company, the principal managing directors being a bill-poster called Nagle, a friend of Nagle’s called Sutton, and Captain Fryer, a wine-merchant in the City. Fryer had married the old Strand favourite, Bella Goodall, and was a member of the Junior Garrick and other theatrical clubs, in one of which I first made his acquaintance. John Baum was the manager, and the hard-working and inimitable Jacobi was chef d’orchestra.

John Baum, the manager, presented to the ordinary observer rather an interesting problem. He was at once manager of the Alhambra, lessee of Cremorne, and the owner of a glove-shop in Piccadilly, situated on or about, the spot on which the fountain now stands; for at that time the open space which spreads itself before the Criterion was covered by a triangular block of buildings, the back of which faced the London Pavilion, which then stood close by the Café Monico and a nasty anatomical exhibition known as Dr. Kahn’s Museum. The exhibitor eked out a bare existence by pandering to the prurient, and was at last compelled by the authorities to close his unspeakably sorry show. But I must not side-track Baum in describing his surroundings. He was a little, fair-haired person with a rotund figure. He invariably appeared in public in a tall hat, a black frock-coat, and a narrow black tie, carefully fastened in a bow. But for a scrubby moustache, he looked far more like a Dissenting parson than like a music-hall manager. No one could have inferred from his personal appearance that he could be in any way connected with two such establishments as the Alhambra and Cremorne.

Baum was a most reticent man. Little or nothing was to be got out of him in the course of conversation. He was at the same time quite polite, and even affable, in his manner. I once accepted his invitation to go and interview De Groof, the intrepid adventurer, who was about to make an aerial flight from Cremorne. At the present moment, when aerial navigation has just come back, and come to stay, a short reference to De Groof may not be considered out of place. About De Groof himself there was nothing particularly striking. His name notwithstanding, the aeronaut was a Frenchman, and he reposed, or affected to repose, the most absolute reliance on his machine. The latter was more of a parachute than anything else. It consisted of two enormous wings worked by pulleys. Between the wings a seat was fixed for the accommodation of the flyer. The machine was to be fixed to a balloon, from which it could be disconnected at will, when it was expected to descend gracefully to the ground. I did not witness the ascent, and so was spared seeing the catastrophe. The balloon failed to get away satisfactorily. The weight of the machine in tow was no doubt the cause; and De Groof, fearing collision with a church-steeple in Sidney Street, Fulham Road, detached his apparatus prematurely. The machine fell to the earth like a stone, and the unfortunate inventor was instantly killed.

The Alhambra audiences were drawn by an exhibition of terpsichorean art and female beauty. And establishments devoting themselves to such an exhibition will have lots of hangers-on. One of the most noticeable of these was an exceedingly well-known but ancient and cadaverous-looking Hebrew not wholly unconnected—if there was anything in current report—with West End usury. He was supposed to be the benefactor of beauty in distress—the guide, philosopher, and friend, of impecunious maidenhood. Nor was his philanthropy confined to members of the corps de ballet.

Certain of the habitués of the house had an admission behind the scenes to what was known as the “canteen,” enjoying the privilege, which, strangely enough, seems to appeal both to youth and old age, of drinking champagne made of gooseberries in the company of ballet-girls in gauze skirts and no bodices to speak of. It has always struck me as strange that men accustomed to luxurious surroundings in their homes and clubs can extract any pleasure in becoming temporary participants of an existence the dominant note of which is squalor, in which all the senses are disagreeably assaulted, and the inevitable consequence of which is a poignant sense of personal degradation! The “canteen” is, happily, a thing of the past.