GOOD NIGHT.
They are generally the mistresses of men of leisure, and when the season is at its height a great number of men about town may be seen here, as spectators, who comefrom the clubs or the Houses of Parliament, bored by the ennui of the reading rooms at one place, or the prosy speeches of members of the other. Some of the men dance with cigars in their mouths, and whirl around in such a wild manner as to cause collision with the other couples. Occasionally you will see two girls waltzing, and men who have sat too long at the dinner-table will, once in an evening, get up together and dance a "stag dance." But this is not encouraged by the master of ceremonies, as the dancing of a pair of male bipeds is not calculated to help the business of the place, and it is instantly suppressed, amid cheers and laughter.
The music strikes up for the last gallop, and there is a rush for partners; the balconies and alcoves and luxurious seats and marble tables are deserted, and in a moment everything is in a wild hurly-burly and a confusion and uproar; men and women galloping and bounding and yelling to the right, and to the left, and as the last crash of the big drum beats on the ear the passages and doorways are thronged with the dancers, every man crying for a cab to take himself and partner somewhere, perhaps they care not where—it is no matter; and now the place is in darkness, and the policemen having seen the last of the women leave the doorway, begin their patrol duty, which will last until day breaks and the stars fall from the London sky, telling them that they are relieved from their night's watch.
The detective shakes hand with and leaves me, he to go eastward to Temple Bar, and I to bed in a remote quarter of the great Babylon, whose noises and turmoil are now hushed into silence, excepting where a solitary street-walker, famishing from hunger, or a drunken pedestrian bars the way, and makes the night resound with insane shouts.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
THE best expression of Protestant Ecclesiastical art in England, and perhaps in the world, is manifested in St. Paul's Cathedral, London. It is a stupendous temple rather than a church, and the religious effect is lost in the interior by the number of tombs erected to admirals, generals, colonels, and other military and naval heroes.
When Nelson ordered the decks of the Victory cleared for action at Trafalgar, he cried out to his lieutenant, Hardy:
"Now for a peerage or Westminster Abbey."
But Nelson lies in St. Paul's, and the tomb of England's greatest soldier—Wellington, is quite near his, under the same lofty nave. All the great Cathedrals and Abbies of England were built before the Reformation, and, consequently, St. Paul's is the best and truest proof of Protestant art in England.
WHEN ERECTED AND THE ARCHITECT.
The yearly revenues of this Cathedral are £23,422. This does not include the salaries of the Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's, four Canons, a Precentor, a Chancellor, Treasurer, Archdeacon of London, Archdeacon of Middlesex, 29 Canons who do nothing but draw their salaries, a Divinity Lecturer, a Sub-Dean, 12 Minor Canons, among whom are a Succentor, Sacrist, Gospeller, Epistolar, Librarian, Almoner, and Warden, a Commissary, a Registrar and Chapter Clerk, a Deputy Registrar, a Receiver and Steward, six Vicars, a Choral, and an Organist; five Bishops' Chaplains, an Examining Chaplain, a Chancellor of the Diocese, a Secretary to the Bishop of London, and a Registrar to the Bishop of London at the Cathedral. Altogether about eighty ecclesiastics who receive salaries from the Cathedral, besides a swarm of vergers, choristers, and servants of all kinds the salaries of whom amount to at least £50,000 a year.
cathedral
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.
Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of St. Paul's, and the first stone of the new Cathedral was laid on the site of the old St. Paul's (which had been destroyed by fire in 1666), in June 1671, and thirty-nine years afterward, the last stone was laid at the top of the lantern in 1710, by the son of Sir Christopher Wren, who had succeeded his father as the architect.
As St. Peter's at Rome is considered to be the chief temple of Catholic Christendom, so is St. Paul's entitled to hold the first place in Protestant Christendom. The whole expense of rebuilding St. Paul's was £736,752 2s. 3d. for the Cathedral, and £11,202 0s. 6d. for the stone wall and railings around the Cathedral. The architect received a beggarly £200 a year during its construction, for his services. The same architect afterwards designed fifty churches to take the place of those burnt down in the Great Fire, and they are all standing to-day, I believe.
The dimensions of St. Paul's as compared with St. Peter's at Rome, are as follows:
The diameter of the gilt ball is 6 feet 2 inches; the weight 5,600 lbs., and will contain eight persons; the weight of the cross is 3,360 lbs.
The ground on which the present Cathedral stands has, from time immemorial, been sacred to Divine Worship. There was a Christian church here as early as the Second century, built, as it is supposed, by the Romans, which was destroyed during the persecutions of Diocletian, and again rebuilt, and in the Sixth century it was desecrated by the Pagan Saxons, who celebrated their Heathenish mysteries in the church.
It was afterwards richly endowed with lordships by Athelstan, Edgar, Ethelred, Canute, and Edward the Confessor. The Norman barons, when they came, made a raid on the property of the church as they did upon everything they saw in England, and the Saxon priests, half frightened to death by such violence, had their property returned them by Duke William, who gave it a charter on his coronation day, cursing all those who should molest the property of St. Paul's, and blessing those who should augment its revenues.
The enumeration of the jewels, and precious stones, and gold and silver ornaments presented to St. Paul's by its various pious benefactors, takes up twenty-eight pages of Dugdale's Monasticon.
The dimensions of Old St. Paul's in the year 1315 were:
The height of the gilt ball on the top of the dome, (which was large enough to hold ten bushels of corn inside) from the ground, was 520 feet and it supported a cross, which made the entire height to the top of the cross, 534 feet. The area occupied by the edifice of Old St. Paul's was three and a half acres, one and one-half rood and 6 perches. The walls of the present Cathedral are 1,500 feet in circuit, and enclose five-eighths of an acre, or about one-fifth of the space of the old St. Paul's. In fine, the present Cathedral is in every way inferior to the old one, and in some places it is very tawdy in decoration, while the Old St. Paul's was in many respects a finer cathedral than St. Peter's, and twenty feet deeper.
DESTRUCTION OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.
In 1561 the steeple of Old St. Paul's was burnt down, a few years after Queen Elizabeth ascended the throne, and it was subsequently decided to rebuild the Cathedral, and Inigo Jones, a far superior architect to Wren, was chosen for the task. In 1633, Archbishop Laud laid the first stone of Inigo Jones's Cathedral, which was destroyed by fire in 1666. In 1643 the building was finished at an expense of £100,000. This Cathedral was architecturally and in every way superior to that built afterward by Wren, but was as much inferior to the old Cathedral of the Middle Ages, which Wren sought to improve upon.
It is believed that modern European Freemasonry was first founded among the workmen who were employed in rebuilding St. Paul's, from the fact of a number of the stone masons meeting together during the work in a social fashion, and fromthis casual association it is stated that the Lodge of Antiquity, of which Sir Christopher Wren was Master, originated, the occasion being the laying of the highest or lantern stone of the Cathedral in 1710—and it is stated that from this Lodge of Antiquity all the other Lodges of modern Europe have sprung.
The Cathedral contains monuments to Nelson, who is buried in a wooden coffin taken from the mainmast of the French Admiral's ship captured at the battle of the Nile the very same ship in which the boy Casabianca, the Admiral's son, "stood on the burning deck, whence all but him had fled." Nelson lies close to Wellington, and other illustrious men. His coffin is enclosed in a sarcophagus made by order of Cardinal Wolsey for Henry VIII.
Wellington is buried in the crypt of the Cathedral, in a sarcophagus made of Cornish porphyry, and near him is his old subordinate, the Irish Sir Thomas Picton, who commanded the Fighting Fifth Division at Waterloo. Queen Anne, who used to come to St. Paul's in great state and procession to thank God for the victories won for her by the Duke of Marlborough, and whom she afterwards betrayed—has a bronze statue erected in the pediment of the Cathedral.
Besides these worthies, the tombs of Collingwood, Nelson's friend, Wren, Rennie, the builder of London Bridge, and Mylne, of Waterloo Bridge, Dr. Samuel Johnson, who expected to be buried in Westminster Abbey, and was disappointed, like many others, Sir William Jones, Sir Astley Cooper, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Turner, the greatest colorist England has ever produced, Fuseli, Barry, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Opie, West and other famous painters, John, of Gaunt, Vandyke, Dr. Donne, Sir C. Hatton, Dean Colet, founder of St. Paul's School, and Sir Nicholas Bacon are buried in the crypt under St. Faith's—the parish church of St. Paul's—which is quite contiguous to the latter.
There are monuments to Bishop Heber, Lord Cornwallis, Nelson, Reynolds, Johnson, Sir John Moore, Elliott, who defended Gibraltar, Lord Howe, Rodney, Ponsonby, Admiral Dundas, and a large number beside of their country's defenders in the Cathedral.
PRICES OF ADMISSION.
To speak plainly the interior does not look like a church of God at all. It is simply a huge Pantheon, with monumental effigies, and slabs indicating the virtues, heroism, gallantry and acts in battle of innumerable soldiers and sailors who have fought for Britain in times gone by. The vast Rotunda and the gigantic Dome do not give the idea of a church, and the pillars and cornices have little in their aspect to make a spectator feel that he stands in the presence of the Almighty.
Yet the monuments and the vastness of the Cathedral are worthy of inspection, though the exterior of the Cathedral is far more imposing than the interior, owing to the fact that the real height of the walls of the body of the edifice is marked by a double row of pillars, which are ranged on top of each other, giving to the spectator an impression that the Cathedral walls to the roof, exclusive of the dome and cupola, are twice as high as they are in reality.
The following are the charges to see the different places in the Cathedral:—to the body of the church, 2d.; to the Whispering Gallery and the outside galleries around the dome, 6d.; to the Library, the Model Room, the Geometrical Staircase in the south turret, and the Great Bell, which weighs 12,000 pounds, 1s.; to the Ball at the top, 1s. 6d.; to the clock, 2d., and to the vaults 1s., in all 4s. 4d. from each visitor; which is nothing less than a downright robbery. This is playing Barnum with a vengeance.
It was the great bell of St. Paul's which a soldier on the ramparts at Windsor, twenty miles away, heard striking thirteen strokes one night, instead of twelve. He was tried for sleeping on his post, found guilty, and sentenced to death, and would have suffered had it not been for his stout heart, and his persistent assertion that he heard the bell strike thirteen instead of twelve strokes. It was proved that the bell did strike thirteen on the night in question, by the mistake of the ringer, and thus the soldier was exonerated.
It was for this same bell that Henry VIII. and a dissolute nobleman named Partridge, rattled the dice one night; and finally Henry lost the stake. Partridge having won, died in the sameyear in an unfortunate manner, just before he had made up his impious mind to have the bell melted down. This was looked upon as a judgment of God, for in those days judgments of God were of common occurrence.
The grandest sight ever seen under the dome of St. Paul's was the funeral of Nelson, which took place January 9, 1806. The body was brought through the streets from Whitehall Stairs, with the King, Lord Mayor, the Lords of the Admiralty, the Princes of the Blood, the nobles, prelates and civic companies following, through densely packed streets, which were almost impassable, for all England was there in heart, if not in body. The bands played the "Dead March in Saul" during the afternoon, and minute guns were fired from the Tower and along the wharves as the body passed. Hardy, Nelson's post-captain, and forty-eight sailors, who had seen the hero die, surrounded the corpse, and when the body was taken from the hearse into the vast Cathedral, a clear space was formed amid all that great sea of faces by the Highland soldiers of Abercromby, who had been with Nelson in Egypt and at Aboukir. Above was the immense dome, and from its dark and impenetrable depths depended a huge octagonal lantern, encircled by innumerable lamps.
Then came the words from the lips of the prelate who officiated:
"I am the Resurrection and the Life, and he who believeth in me though he were dead, yet shall he rise again," the mighty organ bursting forth—and out of all that vast multitude went forth a great, tremendous sob as the body was lowered into the grave enshrouded by the oak which came from the enemies' ship, and Nelson's flag, which he had borne at his masthead in victory so often was also about to be lowered, when suddenly the forty-eight sailors of his vessel, some of whom had carried his lifeless body from the deck to the cockpit—as if moved by one impulse, closed around the grave, rent the flag in pieces, each man securing a piece of the sacred emblem upon his person, as a testament of the greatest hero England ever saw, or ever will see again.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
GOING TO THE PLAY.
THERE can be no doubt but that London is a city much given to amusement, and I question if there can be found another city which spends more money and with a better grace, to support music and the drama.
It is very true that in a great degree the cheap amusement halls of London are of the very lowest kind to be found anywhere, but then the reader must understand that the greater number of theatre going and music-loving people never enter these haunts, which have won so much infamy among strangers. I refer, of course, to such places as the Argyle, the Alhambra, Cremorne, the Casino, and other resorts of the kind.
I think that the Londoners as compared with the Parisians, give a great deal more money for the amusements which they attend than the Parisians do for theirs.
Lately the French government has been compelled to build for the delectation of the Parisians, a splendid opera house, and besides the cost of this structure, which was two million of dollars, the government of France pays the following annual subventions or donations for opera alone: to the Italian Opera 120,000 francs, French Opera 900,000 francs and 250,000 francs to the Opera Comique, beside 200,000 francs annually to the Conservatoire, where music is taught.
In London, however, the support of such places is voluntary, and no state interference is dreamed of, save that of the Lord Chamberlain who is a sort of censor, and whose duty is chiefly to see that the ballet-girls do not abbreviate their skirts too much.
neilson
"BEAUTIFUL MISS NEILSON."
The most popular and lady-like actress in London is Miss Neilson, who performs at the Lyceum, the Princess's and Queen's Theatres. This young and charming actress is a favorite with all classes, owing to her perfect skill as an artiste, and her reputation is without reproach. She is known as "Beautiful Miss Neilson," and is of medium height, with dark, languishing eyes, in which the fire of genius burns, with a steady flame. Miss Kate Bateman, now Mrs. Dr. Crowe, is also a great favorite with the Londoners, and most deservedly so, for she has not her equal on the English stage in her distinctive line of characters. Who that ever saw the last act of "Leah," or the "Prison Scene" in "Mary Warner," will deny her terrible power as an actress. The English capital is divided into two camps as to the merits of the rival comedians—Lawrence, Toole and John Baldwin Buckstone. Alfred Wigan, and our own "Dundreary Sothern," stand high in the ranks of their profession, and no English comedian ever met with a more successful triumph in his own land than that earned by John S. Clarke at the Strand Theatre in 1869-70. French plays are very wellreceived at the St. James Theatre—and I had the pleasure of listening to Schneider, in "Barbe Bleue" and "Orphee aux Enfer," who was supported by Dupuis, the celebrated tenor. Having visited many theatres in England, I can safely avow that I never saw an English comedy, or a play dealing with English characters and English homes, performed in better taste, or with more fidelity, than I have seen like plays produced at Wallack's Theatre, in New York City.
FULL DRESS REQUIRED.
Nearly all London theatres except the Queen's, in Long Acre, are dark and gloomy, and in the opera houses, the old style of erecting the private boxes or loges tier over tier and then hanging them with red velvet, gives a peculiarly heavy look to the interiors. Besides, prices for reserved seats are awfully high, and unless a man is the possessor of a pretty large private fortune, he cannot think of indulging in opera at all. As a proof of this I will here subjoin the prices at the Haymarket Opera House or "Her Majesty's," as it is called. The performances were Italian, German, and French, Grand Opera, and ballet:
Tariff of prices for private boxes: Pit boxes, 150 guineas for the season; grand tier, 200 guineas; one pair, 150 guineas; two pair, 100 guineas; orchestra stalls, 25 guineas; pit tickets, 10s. 6d.; amphitheatre stalls, 5s.; gallery, 2s. 6d. Opera on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and special extra nights. No extra charge for booking places. Evening dress to boxes, stalls and pit. Gratuities to boxkeepers optional. Doors open at eight; performance commences at half-past eight.
These prices, it will be seen, are simply frightful. Then, unless you go in the gallery, you must be in full dress swallowtail and white choker, which is not relished by Americans, and particularly by those from the back-woods, who are not very familiar with evening dress coats. Of course the large sums are the subscriptions for a season of perhaps thirty nights.
At the Covent Garden Opera House, the tariff of prices is as follows:
Private boxes: Second tier, 2½ guineas; first tier, near the stage, 3 guineas; ditto, at the side, 4 guineas; ditto, in thecentre, 5 guineas; grand tier, 6 guineas; pit tier, 5 guineas; pit stalls, 21s.; pit, 7 s.; amphitheatre, 2s. 6d.; amphitheatre stalls, front row, 10s. 6d.; second row 7s.; all other rows, 5s. No extra charge for booking places. Evening dress to all parts except the amphitheatre and amphitheatre stalls. No gratuities allowed to boxkeepers. Doors open at eight; performance commences at half-past eight.
In most of the theatres in London hideous old women or shabby looking men attend in the lobbies, and wait upon the people who have need for their services during the night, demanding a fee for every trifling errand, and in a first-class place of amusement, a boxkeeper would be insulted if offered less than a shilling for turning a key.
And then there are terrible young blackguards who insist upon the stranger's buying oranges, walnuts or apples from them, or else he must take their chaff as it is given.
But the biggest swindle of all is, that a man must pay two pence for the programme of the play, or three pence or four pence, as the case may be, and yet I have heard Englishmen tell me with audacity that they lived in a free country.
And now before I proceed to tell anything of the London theatres, I will give a table of the prices and the time of opening doors, with the location of each place of amusement for the benefit of those who may visit London:
ASTLEY'S AMPHITHEATRE.
The Adelphi, 411 Strand; admission, seven o'clock—6s., 5s., 3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.;Astley's, Westminster Road, Lambeth; seven o'clock—5s., 3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.;Britannia, Hoxton Old Town, will hold 3,400 persons; half-past six o'clock—2s., 1s., 6d., and 3d.;City of London, 36 Norton Folgate; seven o'clock—2s., 1s., and 6d.;Covent Garden, Bow street; eight o'clock—7s., 5s., 3s., 2s. 6d., 2s., and 1s. It was built in 1849, with Floral Hall adjoining. Its size, 240 feet by 123 feet, and 100 feet high, equals that of La Scala, the largest in Europe.Drury Lane, seven o'clock—7s., 5s., 2s., 1s., and 6d.;Grecian, City Road, seven o'clock—1s., 6d., and 3d.;Haymarket, seven o'clock—7s. 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.;Her Majesty's, corner of Haymarket, eighto'clock—7s., 5s., 3s., 2s. 6d., 2s., and 1s.;Holborn, High Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery Lane, seven o'clock—6s., 4s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.;Lyceum, Strand, seven o'clock—6s., 5s., 3s., 2s., and 1s.;Olympic, Wych street, Drury Lane, half-past seven o'clock—6s., 4s., 2s., 1s.;Marylebone, Portman Market, seven o'clock—3s., 2s., 1s., and 6d.;Pavilion, Whitechapel, half-past six o'clock—2s., 1s., and 6d.;Prince of Wales, Tottenham Court Road, seven o'clock—6s., 3s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.;Princess's, Oxford street, seven o'clock—6s., 5s., 4s., 2s., and 1s.;Queen's, Long Acre, formerly St. Martin's Hall, seven o'clock—6s., 5s., 4s., 2s. 6d., 2s., and 1s.;RoyaltyorSoho, Dean street, Oxford street, half-past seven o'clock—5s., 3s., 1s., and 6d.;Royal Amphitheatre, High Holborn, west of Red Lion street, seven o'clock—4s., 2s., 1s. 6d., and 1s.;Sadler's Wells, Clerkenwell, seven o'clock—3s., 2s., 1s., and 6d.;Standard, Shoreditch, half-past six o'clock—3s., 1s. 6d., 1s., 6d., and 3d., burnt down in 1866, is rebuilding;St. James's, King street, St. James's Square, half-past seven o'clock—4s., 3s., 2s., and 6d.;Strand, Strand, seven o'clock—5s., 3s., 1s. 6d., and 6.;Surrey, Blackfriar's Road, seven o'clock—3s., 2s., 1s. 6d., 1s., and 6d.;Victoria, New Cut, Lambeth, half-past six o'clock—1s. 6d., 1s., 6d., and 3d.
Drury Lane, which was built in 1812, will seat 1,700 persons, and its vestibule and saloons are as fine as any in Europe. Private boxes in the London theatres range in price for a single seat at from one guinea to four pounds, or from $5 to $20 a night. The Olympic seats 2,000; the Adelphi 1,500; Astley's Circus 4,000, and the gallery of the Victoria will seat 2,000, while the Pit of the Pavilion, a murderous hole in Whitechapel, seats 1,500 roughs.
Astley's is a sort of Hippodrome for spectacles, and is much loved by young London for the prancing of its horses and its grand shows. Astley's is at Lambeth, on the Surrey side of the Thames, and is in the heart of the democratic quarter of London. The present building is the fourth erected upon this site. The first was one of the nineteen theatres built byPhilip Astley, and was opened in 1773, burnt in 1794; rebuilt 1795, burnt 1803; rebuilt 1804, burnt June 8, 1841, within two hours, the house being principally constructed from old ship-timber. It was rebuilt, and opened April 17, 1843, and has since been enlarged. There is only one other theatre in London for equestrianism; and the stud of trained horses numbers from fifty to sixty.
Philip Astley, originally a cavalry soldier, commenced horsemanship in 1763, in an open field at Lambeth. He built his first theatre partly with £60, the produce of an unowned diamond ring which he found on Westminster Bridge. Andrew Ducrow, subsequently proprietor of the Amphitheatre, was born at the Nag's Head, Borough, in 1793, when his father, Peter Ducrow, a native of Bruges, was "the Flemish Hercules" at Astley's. The fire in 1841 arose from ignited wadding, such as caused the destruction of the old Globe Theatre in 1613, and Covent Garden Theatre in 1808. Andrew Ducrow died January 26, 1842, of mental derangement and paralysis, produced by the above catastrophe.
Covent Garden theatre is the second one built on its site,—it being a strange fact that nearly all the theatres in London have been burnt down from time to time. It was here that the "O.P.," or "Old Prices," riots took place in 1804, and continued for seventy-seven nights, the management having made an attempt to raise the prices, but at last they had to back down before the popular storm. Incledon, Charles Kemble, Mrs. Glover, George Frederick Cooke, Miss O'Neill, Macready, Farren, Fanny Kemble, Adelaide Kemble and Edmund Kean have strutted their brief hours on its stage, but now the house is entirely devoted to opera.
Drury Lane Theatre, or "Old Drury," as it is sometimes known, and was at one time called the "Wilderness" by Mrs. Siddons, is situated in one of the lowest quarters of London, where vice, crime, poverty and drunkenness abound, but still it is frequented by the best classes of the play-going public. Here, one night in August, 1869, I saw "Formosa" played to a very full house, the excitement about the Harvard and Oxford racehaving culminated about this time. It was then under the direction of Mr. Dion Boucicault, who has made and lost two or three fortunes in the management of theatres. All the famous disciples of the histrionic art who live in English dramatic history, have appeared during the last two hundred years on the boards of Old Drury.
In 1799 sixteen persons were trodden to death in an alarm which took place at the Haymarket theatre.
There is a little theatre called the Adelphi, in the Strand, near Cecil street where I had rooms for some time, and this little dirty theatre, which has a vestibule like the entrance to a New York lager bier saloon, has been very much frequented by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. This royal lady has some queer tastes, and among them is a fondness for broad farce or low comedy. She is also fond of the piano, which she learned from a Mrs. Anderson, and sometimes when she plays she likes to be accompanied by two or three of the most distinguished violinists that can be procured. The Queen used to sing, and in the old days, when the world was new to her and before she had been widowed, it was the custom at the nice little private parties which she gave, to have Prince Albert sing with her, while the Hon. Mrs. Grey, wife of her Secretary (and a lady who had a good deal of work in helping to compose the Queen's memoirs), performed on the piano.
In every place of amusement in London, be it high or low, there is a place set apart for the Queen's family, so that should she take a notion to visit the most out of the way place, she may be certain of being able to secure a secluded nook or loge where she will not be intruded upon.
A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.
In the vicinity of all the theatres of the lower grade in and about London, I found nests of cheap public houses or drinking bars, and toward nine or ten o'clock, while the performances are at the height of dramatic agony, these resorts are crowded, with persons of both sexes, who have slipped out of the amusement halls to get a pint of beer or "tuppence" worth of "gin neat." Gin "neat" is gin without water or sugar, and this drink is very popular among women of the lowest class in London.
gin
A GIN PUBLIC IN THE NEW CUT.
In Waterloo Road, close upon the Victoria theatre, I saw one of these "gin publics," the doors of which were choked with customers passing in and out from the adjoining theatre. There were negroes, Malays and Chinamen, with an overflowing majority of Cockneys, in the "public," all of whom were busily engaged in assuaging their thirst, or firing up their stomach furnaces. Not a little puzzled was I, to see women with small children in their arms, drinking alongside of sooty coal-bargemen—negroes, and young children, who had been driven by their miserable parents to beg coppers wherewith toprocure them gin. It was a dreadful scene to witness, and the smiling fiend behind the bar was positively fat and enjoying the haggardness in some of his customers' faces.
I had been told that there was a theatre on the Surrey side of the river, in which, if I visited it, I might find all the unwashed elements of the London democracy at home, and one evening I found myself before its door, after a long journey.
IN THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."
This was the "Royal Victoria Theatre," New Cut, Lambeth. The Bowery, in its palmiest and most glorious days, could not hold a candle to this histrionic temple. Its tragedies and dramas of the highway robber and George Barnewell apprentice school are not, perhaps, to be equaled in any theatre in the world. The Porte St. Martin, in Paris, is a mere training-school of horror compared with this, the most bloodthirsty of places of amusement. There were two entrances—one for the aristocracy of Lambeth, the other for the underfed plough-holders, or, rather, for the Costermongers. The aristocratic entrance had a dark, dirty box-office, illumined by a pair of gas-jets that could hardly find air to flutter in, so strong was the stench of men and filthy materialism.
Over the door of the box-office was a sign, "Pit, 6d.; gallery, 3d.; private stage boxes, 2s." The crowds pushed hard and fast to get an entrance. They came in swarms of fustian and corduroys, with unkempt hair, the bosoms of some of the costerwomen almost laid bare with the shoving and crushing; the lads and men wearing heavy hob-nailed shoes, such shoes as are never seen in America excepting on the feet of emigrants, who stream through the gates of Castle Garden from the waste of Atlantic waters—and these heavy hob-nailed shoes did wonders in hurrying the progress of the front ranks, by repeated applications to the calves and ankles of those who had the good or bad luck to stand nearest the door of the theatre.
After a severe struggle, in which some greasy corduroys are ripped and several caps lost, and a number of babies squeezed—who are in the arms of girls hardly old enough, one would think, to be their lawful mothers—we get clear of the mob, shouting, screaming, and whistling, and pass up the dirty, ricketystairs to the three-penny Gallery of the "Vic," as the theatre is called by the class who frequent it; and now a sight presents itself to the writer such as is seldom seen, and never in any city but London.
vic
THE GALLERY OF THE "VIC."
I lost my hat on the stairs, and in the crush I discovered it in the hands of a mutinous boy, about a dozen steps below me, who threatened if I did not give him a sixpence "to kick the brains hout hof hit." I give the truly amusing boy sixpence and the hat is flung up to me much the worse for wear, while a young girl with a dowdy bonnet and a face swelled with gin asks me in chaff if I am fond of "periwinkles."
The gallery of the Victoria is one of the largest in the world, and will hold, on a modest computation, 2,200 people.
Five minutes after I found myself in the gallery; it was crowded and not a seat could be had, for these people gather at the theatre doors, and fill the surrounding streets and lanes for an hour before the place is advertised to be open.
As I have no seat and look rather out of place, several cheerful young ladies offer to let me sit in their laps, and facetious remarks are made on the different articles of apparel which I have on me. Being a very warm evening, nearly all of the males, men and boys, are in their shirt-sleeves, and it grieves one to think that many of these shirts are sadly in need of washing, and not a few want repairing. The boys and men are hardly seated when they fall into something like the Old Bowery tramp—only that here they all seem to be acquainted with the same slang song, and it is sung by them in a loud, full, and not unmelodious chorus, with a vehemence that shakes the old timbers of the house.
In the well-ordered pit of the Bowery theatre in other days, if I remember right, such truly scandalous conduct would have instantly been suppressed by the strong arm and heavy stinging cane of the brawny fellow who stood with his back to the stage, immediately behind the orchestra; his watchful eyes surveying every rugged face in the pit, and ready with his powerful arm to rain blows like a storm on the shoulders of the brawler.
THE CHORUS OF "IMMENSEKOFF."
I should like to see a man with a brawny arm and cane try the same thing on the audience in the gallery of the "Vic." I am sure he would be thrown over the rail into the lower part of the theatre, particularly if he were to interrupt a chorus. Many of the men and lads, who have their entire week's earnings in their pockets, are very drunk already, though it is only half-past seven o'clock of the Saturday night. The chorus which they are singing is that of a popular street and music-hall song, which every one is now humming in London. They sung it as follows:
"Ha! my dear frens, pray 'ow de doo,Hi 'opes I sees yer well,Peer'aps yer don't know 'oo I is;Well, then, I'm the Heastern swell.My chambers is in Shoreditch,And I fancy I'm a Toff;From top to toe IreallythinkI looks—Immensekoff.Immensekoff—Immensekoff,Behold me a Shoreditch Toff—A toff, a toff, a Shoreditch Toff,Hand I thinks myself—Immensekoff."
"Come hup there, ye lazy fiddlers, and give us our thrip-pence worth," shouts an irate lad to the orchestra, who are scraping and rosining their instruments.
"Yes, give us moosic for our money, old bald head," shouts another young ruffian to the despised leader of the orchestra, who responds with a wave, and then we have "God Save the Queen," done after the style popular in the New Cut.
When this is over a red-headed fellow, with his arms bare and perspiring like the lower animal that he is, cries out loudly, "Now for the next varse, and give us a good chorious," and then they all commence again:
"Vith the fair sec', bless 'em, need I say—That hi am 'number Von;'Hitsreallyquite a bore to meThe way the gals do run—Not away from me—but hafter me.Hah—you may laugh and scoff,But I can tell yer—that the galsThink me—Immensekoff.Immensekoff—Immensekoff."
And so on for five mortal verses the whole mad swarm of dirty, ignorant wretches, keeping time with hands and feet until my head ached, and I went down the narrow stairs, while a number of polite young ladies inquired as I passed, "if I had been sea-sick." The descent to the lower part of the theatre was about forty-feet, down a dimly lighted stairs, and I found myself in the family circle, as it would be called in America, the seats being of planed planks without cushions, while the aisles were crowded with people, as above in the three-penny gallery.
THE "TERROR OF LONDON."
Here the admission was, I think, a shilling, and the audience was a little more select, yet not enough to cause remark from a stranger. The doorkeeper told me he could get me a seat in a private box on the stage for two shillings, and I followed him through another dirty, dark passage, my feet crushing the shells of walnuts and filberts, which here take the place of the old time peanuts.
I was solicited to buy sandwiches of a very ancient aspect by several men, and pigs' feet and sheep's trotters by a number of women, at a penny and "tuppence" apiece; and a boy with a large flat basket offered me a pint of periwinkles for "three ha'pence," "all fresh, sir;" and finally I got into the box on the stage, which gave me a very good view of the entire theatre and its sweltering audience. Pit, circle, and "three-penny" gallery were packed with human heads, tier upon tier, in a manner that seemed to defy description.
The walls were rough, and in some places but poorly papered, and in the corners of the upper gallery, flirtation, small-talk, and chaff went on so audibly that I could hear almost what was spoken, or rather cried out from the gallery, although I was at the other extremity of the building. Great anxiety was manifested to have the curtain hoisted by the unruly audience, and not a little shouting was done to make the fiddlers hurry up their overture.
The piece was called the "Terror of London," and it depicted the life of an apprentice who had departed from the ways of honesty to take up with bad companions in pot-houses, and was in four acts. The apprentice was of course the hero of the drama, and the author of the piece played the character of the abused apprentice. Whenever the apprentice kicked a policeman or threw one of his pursuers down a dark trap-door, there was great applause of his dexterity; but when the villain of the piece, a snaky-looking wretch, unworthy to breathe the "a-i-r-r-r of heving," slapped his hands after the commission of a fresh crime, he was received with derisive shouts and yells, which he, however, took as compliments to his histrionic skill.
The heroine of the piece was in love with the unfortunate and dissipated apprentice, and did nothing but clasp her hands and tear her hair at his "goings on." But at last she was roused to fury when the villain of the play followed the dishonest apprentice to his mother's grave to give him up to the police. The apprentice was discovered lying across a painted marble tombstone, and when the police entered, led on by the heavy villain, the heroine threw her body between him and his enemies, and drawing her form to its full height, she declaimed thus:
"The fust m-a-n who places his polyuted touch on the form of my nobil up-e-r-en-tis, though he were doubly armed with the king's authority, shall find his fate on the point of this pon-yard."
After this necessary outburst several more people were killed, and the whole concluded with the dying scene at Tyburn, the gallows, and the culprit, the bowl of ale, and the apprentice asking his friends if they would not prevent him from dying a disgraceful death. Here he makes an attempt to escape, and is pistoled admirably by the villain, who is convenient, and who is in turn pistoled by the apprentice's sweetheart, she being also ready at the proper moment for action. Then the curtain went down, and a stout girl, with fat legs and a green pair of tights, danced a hornpipe, which was loudly encored, the young lady being encouraged by such remarks as:
"Do you want some kidney pies?"
"Kick up, Miss Jenny."
"Don't mind the shoes; we pays for that."
"Tell the fiddlers to give it to yer 'otter—vy, yer not dancing at all!"
"DO YOU WANT SOME KIDNEY PIES?"
Every one in the theatre seemed to be on speaking terms with each and all of the performers, and, in some instances, the latter would answer the chaff back merrily, an incessant fire of replies and counter-replies being kept up that was amusing, if not edifying. While the dancing was going on an old woman made her entrance into the box where I was sitting, and asked if "I didn't want some porter orkidney pies." At the "Vic" it is the custom to eat during the performance, and drink porter or beer, which is brought by old women and boys between the acts, and sold at four-pence a bottle. Then the dancing girl retired gracefully amid great applause. She was succeeded by a comic singer, who sang, in a green coat and kerseys, a song, the burden of which was:
"Wait for the turn of the tide, boys,For Rome wasn't built in a day:Whatever through life may betide, boys,Why, wait for the turn of the tide."
This concluded the performance, and the curtain went down, and the lights in the dirty lamps being extinguished, the roughest audience of the roughest play-house in London wandered right and left, up and down the New Cut to their homes, or else they stopped to drink and drain in the pot-houses, or choke the thoroughfare to buy in the street market, which was now—eleven o'clock—at the height of commercial prosperity. Eleven o'clock tolled from St. Paul's as I repassed Waterloo Bridge back to the city, and the Thames swam and bubbled calmly against the stone piers of the massive bridge.
tailpiece
CHAPTER XXXV.
BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET.
WHEN a foot passenger crossing London Bridge looks down the river to the left, he cannot help noticing a little cluster of masts tapering upward from a series of small hulks and craft which lie quite near to each other, in the shadow of a long building of part brick and stone, the river side of which is open and crowded with people of both sexes from an early hour of the morning.
This is the famous Billingsgate Fish Market, which has given or originated a synonym for blackguardism and low abuse all the world over.
The market for many years consisted of a collection of wooden pent houses, rude sheds, and benches, and the business formerly commenced at three o'clock in the summer and at five in winter. In the latter season it was a strange scene, its large, flaming lamps of oil, showing a crowd of fish venders and fish buyers struggling amid a Babel din of vulgar tongues, which has rendered Billingsgate a by-word for abuse and foul-mouthed language. Addison has referred to the Billingsgate fish-wives and to their quarrels as "the debates which frequently arise among ladies of the British fishery."