Days and Nights in London Part 3

But I have not yet described the street. We will walk down it, if you please. It is not a long street, nor is it a very new one; but is it a very striking one, nevertheless. Every house almost you come to is a lodging-house, and some of them are very large ones, holding as many as four hundred beds. Men unshaven and unwashed are standing loafing about, though in reality this is the hour when, all over London, honest men are too glad to be at work earning their daily bread. A few lads and men are engaged in the intellectual and fas.h.i.+onable amus.e.m.e.nt known as pitch and toss. Well, if they play fairly, I do not know that City people can find much fault with them for doing so. They cannot get rid of their money more quickly than they would were they to gamble on the Stock Exchange, or to invest in limited liability companies or mines which promise cent.

per cent. and never yield a rap but to the promoters who get up the bubble, or to the agent who, as a friend, begs and persuades you to go into them, as he has a lot of shares which he means to keep for himself, but of which, as you are a friend, and as a mark of special favour, he would kindly accommodate you with a few.

But your presence is not welcomed in the street. You are not a lodger, that is clear. Curious and angry eyes follow you all the way. Of course your presence there-the apparition of anything respectable-is an event which creates alarm rather than surprise.

In the square mile of which this street in the centre, it is computed are crowded one hundred and twenty thousand of our poorest population-men and women who have sunk exhausted in the battle of life, and who come here to hide their wretchedness and shame, and in too many cases to train their little ones to follow in their steps. The children have neither shoes nor stockings. They are covered with filth, they are innocent of all the social virtues, and here is their happy hunting-ground; they are a people by themselves.

All round are planted Jews and Germans. In Commercial Street the chances are you may hear as much German as if you were in Deutschland itself.

Nor is this all; the place is a perfect Babel. It is a pity that Flower and Dean Street should be, as it were, representative of England and her inst.i.tutions. It must give the intelligent foreigner rather a shock.

But _place aux dames_ is my motto, and even in the slums let woman take the position which is her due. In the streets the ladies are not in any sense particular, and can scream long and loudly, particularly when under the influence of liquor. They are especially well developed as to their arms, and can defend themselves, if that be necessary, against the rudeness or insolence or the too-gus.h.i.+ng affection of the other s.e.x. As to their manners and morals, perhaps the less said about them the better.

Let us step into one of the lodging-houses which is set apart exclusively for their use. The charge for admission is threepence or fourpence a night, or a little less by the week. You can have no idea of the size of one of these places unless you enter. We will pay a visit in the afternoon, when most of the bedrooms are empty. At the door is a box-office, as it were, for the sale of tickets of admission. Behind extends a large room, provided at one end with cooking apparatus and well supplied with tables and chairs, at which are seated a few old helpless females, who have nothing to do, and don't seem to care much about getting out into the sun. Let us ascend under the guidance of the female who has charge of the place, and who has to sit up till 3 A.M. to admit her fair friends, some of whom evidently keep bad hours and are given rather too much to the habit of what we call making a night of it. Of course most of the rooms are unoccupied, but they are full of beds, which are placed as close together as possible; and this is all the furniture in the room, with the exception of the gla.s.s, without which no one, male or female, can properly perform the duties of the toilette. One woman is already thus occupied. In another room, we catch sight of a few still in bed, or sitting listlessly on their beds. They are mostly youthful, and regard us from afar with natural curiosity-some actually seeming inclined to giggle at our intrusion. As it is, we feel thankful that we need not remain a moment in such company, and we leave them to their terrible fate.

A few hours later they will be out in the streets, seeking whom they may devour. Go down Whitechapel way, and you will see them in shoals haunting the public-houses of the district, or promenading the pavement, or talking to men as sunk in the social scale as themselves. They are fond of light dresses; they eschew bonnets or hats. Some are half-starved; others seem in good condition; and they need be so to stand the life they have to lead. Let us hope Heaven will have more mercy on such as they than man. It cannot be that decent respectable women live in Flower and Dean Street.

But what of the men? Well, I answer at the first glance, you see that they are a rough lot. Some are simply unfortunate and friendless and poor; others do really work honestly for their living-as dock labourers, or as porters in some of the surrounding markets, or at any chance job that may come in their way; many, alas, are of the light-fingered fraternity. The police have but a poor opinion of the honesty of the entire district-but then the police are so uncharitable! The members of the Christian community and others who come here on a Sunday and preach in more than one of the lodging-houses in the street have a better opinion, and certainly can point to men and women reclaimed by their labours, and now leading decent G.o.dly lives. It requires some firmness and Christian love to go preaching in these huge lodging-houses, in which one, it seemed to me, might easily be made away with. Even in the daytime they have an ugly look, filled as they are with idle men, who are asleep now, but who will be busy enough by-and-by-when honesty has done its work and respectability is gone to bed. As commercial speculations I suppose money is made by these places. The proprietor has but little expense to incur in the way of providing furniture or attendance, and in some cases he supplies refreshments, on which of course he makes a profit. But each lodger is at liberty to cater for himself, or to leave it alone if times are bad and money is scarce. At any rate there is the fire always burning, and the locker in which each lodger may stow away what epicurean delicacy or worldly treasure he may possess. I have been in prisons and workhouses, and I can say the inmates of such places are much better lodged, and have better care taken of them, and are better off than the poor people of Flower and Dean Street. The best thing that could happen for them would be the destruction of the whole place by fire. Circ.u.mstances have much to do with the formation of character, and in a more respectable neighbourhood they would become a little more respectable themselves.

In the lodging-houses at Westminster the inhabitants are of a much more industrious character. In Lant Street, Borough, they are quite the reverse. A man should have his wits about him who attempts to penetrate into the mysteries or to understand the life of a low lodging-house there.

For ages the Mint in the Borough has gained an unenviable name, not only as the happy hunting-ground of the disreputable, the prost.i.tute, the thief, the outcast, the most wretched and the lowest of the poor, yet there was a time when it was great and famous. There that brave and accomplished courtier, the Duke of Suffolk, brought his royal bride, the handsome sister of our Henry VIII. It was there poor Edward VI. came on a visit all the way from Hampton Court. It was the goodly gift of Mary the unhappy and ill-fated to the Archbishop of York. Somehow or other Church property seems to be detrimental to the respectability of a neighbourhood, hence the truth of the old adage, "The nearer the church, the farther from G.o.d." At any rate this was the case as regards the Mint in the Borough, which in Gay's time had sunk so low that he made it the scene of his "Beggar's Opera," and there still law may be said to be powerless, and there still they point out the house in which lived Jonathan Wild. In the reign of William, our Protestant hero, and George I., our Hanoverian deliverer, a desperate attempt was made to clear the place of the rogues and vagabonds to whom it afforded shelter and sanctuary; but somehow or other in vain, though all debtors under fifty pounds had their liabilities wiped off by royal liberality. The place was past mending, and so it has ever since remained. It is not a neighbourhood for a lady at any time, but to inhabit it all that is requisite is that, by fair means or foul (in the Mint they are as little particular as to the way in which money is made as they are in the City or on the Stock Exchange), you have fourpence to pay for a night's lodging. All round the place prices may be described as low, to suit the convenience of the customer. You are shaved for a penny. Your hair is cut and curled for twopence. The literature for sale may be termed sensational, and the chandlers' shops, which are of the truest character if I may judge by the contents, do a trade which may be described as miscellaneous.

It is sad to see the successive waves of pauperism rise and burst and disappear. On they come, one after another, as fast as the eye can catch them, and far faster than the mind can realise all the hidden and complex causes of which they are the painful result. One asks, Is this always to be so? Is there to be no end to this supply, of which we see only the surface, as it were? Are all the lessons of the past in vain? Cannot Science, with all its boasted arts, remove the causes, be they what they may, and effect a cure? Is the task too appalling for philanthropy?

Some such thoughts came into my head as I looked upon the dense ma.s.s of men and women, dest.i.tute of work and food, who, at an early hour on the first Sunday in the New Year were collected from all the lodging-houses in the unpretentious but well-known building known as the Gray's Yard Ragged Church and Schools, in a part of London not supposed, like the Seven Dials, to be the home of the wretched, and close by the mansions of the rich and the great. When I entered, as many as seven hundred had been got together, and there was a crowd three hundred strong, equally hungry, equally dest.i.tute, and equally worthy of Christian benevolence.

On entering, each person, as soon as he or she had taken his or her seat, was treated to two thick slices of bread-and-b.u.t.ter and a cup of coffee, and at the close of the service there was the usual distribution of a pound meat-pie and a piece of cake to each individual, and coffee _ad libitum_. It may be added that the cost of this breakfast does not come out of the funds of the inst.i.tution, but is defrayed by special subscriptions, and that Mr. John Morley had sent, as he always does, a parcel of one thousand Gospels for distribution. But what has this got to do, asks the reader, with the thought which, as I say, the sight suggested to me? Why, everything. In the course of the morning, Mr. F.

Bevan, the chairman, asked those who had been there before to hold up their hands, and there was not one hand held up in answer to the question. There was a similar negative response when it was asked of that able-bodied ma.s.s before me-for there were no very old men in the crowd-as to whether any of them were in regular work. This year's pauperism is, then, but the crop of the year. Relieved to-day, next year another crowd will follow; and so the dark and sullen waves, mournfully moaning and wailing, of the measureless ocean of human sorrow and suffering, and want and despair, ever come and ever go. The Christian Church is the lifeboat sailing across this ocean in answer to the cry for help, and rescuing them that are ready to perish. There are cynics who say even all this Christmas feasting does no good. It is a fact that on Christmas week there is a sudden and wonderful exodus from the workhouses around London.

We cannot get improved men and women till we have improved lodging-houses. Recently it was calculated that in St. Giles's parish (once it was St. Giles's-in-the-Fields), there were no less than 3,000 families living in single rooms. Again, in the parish of Holborn, there were quite 12,000, out of a population of 44,000, living in single rooms.

Under such circ.u.mstances, what can we expect but physical and moral degradation? Healthy life is impossible for man or woman, boy or girl.

A Divine Authority tells us, men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. As I write, however, a ray of light reaches me. It appears nearly 10,000 persons are now reaping the benefit of the Peabody Fund.

In the far east there are buildings at Shadwell and Spitalfields; in the far west at Chelsea, in Westminster, and at Grosvenor Road, Pimlico-the latter perfectly appointed edifice alone accommodating 1,952 persons. As many as 768 are lodged in the Islington block, and on the south side of the Thames there are Peabody buildings at Bermondsey, in the Blackfriars Road, Stamford Street, and Southwark Street. One room in the Peabody buildings is never let to two persons. A writer in _The Daily News_ says: Advantage has been taken by the Peabody trustees to purchase land brought into the market by the operation of the Artisans and Labourers'

Dwellings Act. At the present moment nineteen blocks of building are in course of removal either by the City or the Metropolitan Board of Works.

They are situate at Peartree Court, Clerkenwell; Goulston Street, Whitechapel; St. George the Martyr, Southwark; Bedfordbury; Whitechapel and Limehouse, near the London Docks; High Street, Islington; Ess.e.x Road, Islington; Whitecross Street; Old Pye Street, Westminster; Great Wild Street, Drury Lane; Marylebone, hard by the Edgware Road; Wells Street, Poplar; Little Coram Street; and Great Peter Street, Westminster. All these are under the control of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The remaining three-at Petticoat Square, at Golden Lane, and at Barbican-are being removed by the Corporation of the City of London. It is estimated that forty-one acres of land will be laid bare by this clearance-a s.p.a.ce capable of lodging properly at least as many thousand people. There are of course other helpers in the same direction as the Peabody trustees, without being quite in the same sense public bodies administering a large fund for a special purpose, with the single object of extending its sphere of usefulness in accordance with public policy. Some of the companies, however, work for five per cent. return, and their efforts to construct suitable dwellings for workpeople and labourers are very valuable. The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company has buildings at Bethnal Green Road, at Sh.o.r.editch, at Willow Street, and close to the goods station of the Great Northern Railway, besides two blocks near the City Road. The Metropolitan a.s.sociation has blocks of buildings in Whitechapel, and in many spots farther west, as have the Marylebone a.s.sociation, the London Labourers' Dwellings Society, and other bodies of similar kind. The success of Miss Octavia Hill in encouraging the construction of dwellings of the cla.s.s required is well known, as are the buildings erected by Sir Sydney Waterlow, Mr. G. Cutt, and Mr. Newson.

It is almost needless to add that the Baroness Burdett-Coutts has taken a warm interest in this important movement, as a building at Sh.o.r.editch now accommodating seven hundred persons will testify.

VII.-STUDIES AT THE BAR.

On Christmas Eve, in the midst of a dense fog that filled one's throat and closed one's eyes, and rendered the vast City one huge sepulchre, as it were, peopled by ghosts and ghouls, I spent a few hours in what may be called studies at the bar.

First, I turned my steps down Whitechapel way. It is there the pressure of poverty is felt as much as anywhere in London, and as it was early in the evening I went there, I saw it under favourable circ.u.mstances, for the sober people would be shopping, and the drunken ones would scarcely have commenced that riot and quarrelling which are the result in most cases of indulgence in alcohol. From the publican's point of view, of course, I had nothing to expect but unmitigated pleasure. The stuff they sell, they tell us, is the gift of a good Providence, sent us in order to alleviate the gloom and lighten the cares of life. "It is a poor heart that never rejoices," and on Christmas Eve, when we are thinking of the birth of Him who came to send peace on earth and goodwill amongst men, a little extra enjoyment may be expected. In some bars ample provision had been made for the event; decorations had been freely resorted to, and everything had been done to give colour to the delusion that Christmas jollity was to be produced and heightened by the use of what the publican had to sell. Almost the first glimpse I got of the consequences of adherence to this doctrine was at a corner house in Whitechapel, before I got as far as the church, where from the side-door of a gin-palace rushed out a little dirty woman with a pot of beer in her hand, followed by a taller one, who, catching hold of her, began to hit her. On this the attacked woman took a savage grip of the front hair of her opponent, who began to scream "Murder!" with might and main. A crowd was formed immediately, in the expectation of that favourite entertainment of a certain section of the British public-a free fight between two tipsy women; but, alas! they were too far gone to fight, and, after a good deal of bad language, the woman with the porter pursued her victorious way, while the other, almost too drunk to stand, returned to the bar, to rejoin the dirty group she had left, and to be served again-contrary, as I understand, to the law of the land-with the liquor of which she had already had more than enough. In that compartment everything was dirty-the women at the bar and the man behind it, nor was there a spark of good feeling or happiness in the group. There they were-the wives and mothers of the people-all equally besotted, all equally wretched. Oh heavens, what a sight!

And this reminds me of what I saw at a bar in the Gray's Inn Road, in one of the largest of the many houses opened for refreshment, as it is called. In one compartment there were some thirty or forty wretched, dirty, ragged people, mostly women. One of them was in a state of elevation, and was dancing to a set who were evidently too far gone to appreciate her performance. With tipsy gravity, however, she continued her self-appointed task. Ah, poor thing! thought I, you are gay and hilarious now-to-morrow you will lie s.h.i.+vering in the cold-possibly crying for a morsel of bread. You have a garret to sleep in, and nothing to look forward to but the hospital or the workhouse. Heaven wills it, says the pietist. Heaven does nothing of the kind. In the mad debauchery I saw in that bar I am sure there must have been spent money that would have given the wretched topers happier homes, better dinners, and a future far happier than that which I saw hanging over them.

In Chancery Lane I came on several ill.u.s.trations of the joyous conviviality of the season. One poor fellow just before me came down with a tremendous crash. Another nearly ran me down as he steered his difficult way along the slippery street and through the gloomy fog.

Another merry old soul had given up all attempt to find his way home, and had seated himself on a doorstep, planted his hat on one side of his head, put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, and there, asleep, with a short pipe in his mouth, and his legs stretched out, looked as mournful and seedy an object as anyone could desire to contemplate. He had evidently been having a pleasant evening with his companions over a social gla.s.s, merely keeping up good old English customs, wis.h.i.+ng himself and everyone he knew a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

At the gin-palaces near the railway termini, and in those bordering on any place of general marketing, the crowd of customers was enormous, and the cla.s.s was far superior to those I saw in Drury Lane or Whitechapel, or the Gray's Inn Road. They were real respectable working men and their wives, who had been out marketing for the morrow, and who, proud of their success in that direction, and of the store of good things they had collected for the antic.i.p.ated dinner, had to treat themselves with a parting gla.s.s ere they went home. It was a busy time for the men at the bar. In one large public with four or five compartments, I reckoned there must have been nearly a hundred customers. It was quite an effort for anyone to get served; he had to fight his way through the mob to pay his money and get his gla.s.s, and then to struggle back to a quiet corner to drink off its contents with a friend or his wife, but there was no drunkenness.

The men and women of the respectable working cla.s.s are not drunkards.

They have too much sense for that, but they were merry, and a little inclined to be too talkative and heedless. For instance, a party of four went straight from a public-house to a railway station at which I happened to be waiting. One couple were going by the train home-another couple had come to see them off. The wife of the travelling party was fat and heavy, and in her jolly, careless mood, induced by the evening's conviviality, as the train came up she missed her step and fell between the wheels and the platform. Fortunately the train had come to a standstill, or that woman and her husband and her family would have had anything but a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

In one place, patronised by navvies and their wives, there was such a hideous exhibition of indecency that I may not record it. "Why don't you interfere?" said a gentleman to the pot-boy. "Oh," was the reply, "you can't say anything at this season of the year. It is best to leave them alone."

In such low neighbourhoods as Drury Lane it seemed to me that the men preponderated; indeed, at many places they were the only customers. One could not much wonder to find them in such places. Either they live in the low lodging-houses close by, where they pay fourpence a night for a bed, or they have a room for themselves and families in the neighbourhood. In neither case is there much peace for them in what they call their home. They are best out of doors, and then comes the attraction of the public-house, and on Christmas Eve in the dull raw fog almost the only bright spot visible was the gleam of its gaudy splendour, and as a natural consequence bars were pretty well filled. They always are in poor neighbourhoods of a night, and especially such as have a corner situation. It is always good times with the proprietors of such places, even if trade be bad and men are out of work, and little children cry for bread and old people die of starvation and want. A corner public-house is never driven into the bankruptcy court.

But let me change the scene. These low neighbourhoods are really disgusting to people of cultivated minds and refined tastes. I am standing in a wonderfully beautiful hall. On one side is a long counter filled with decanters and winegla.s.ses. Behind these are some lively young ladies, fas.h.i.+onably dressed, and with hair elaborately arranged.

The customers are chiefly young men, whom Albert Smith would have described as gents. They mostly patronise what they call "bittah" beer, and they are wise in doing so, as young men rarely can afford wine, and "bittah" beer is not so likely to affect the few brains they happen to have about them. Of course a good deal of wine is drunk, and there is a great demand for grog, but beer is the prevailing beverage; and as to tea and coffee and such things, they are unfairly handicapped, as the Hebe at the bar charges me sixpence for a small cup of coffee, while the gent by my side pays but twopence for his beer; nor can I say that he pays too much, as he has the opportunity thus afforded to him of talking to a young lady who has no refuge from his impertinence, and who is bound to be civil unless the cad is notoriously offensive, as her trade is to sell liquor, and the more he talks the more he drinks. But the mischief does not end here. Many a married man fancies it is fun to loll over the counter and spoon with the girls behind. He has more cash than the gent, and spends more. If he is not a rich man he would pa.s.s himself off as such; he drinks more than is good for him; he makes the young ladies presents; he talks to them in a sentimental strain, and it may be he has a wife and family at home who are in need of almost the necessaries of life.

In many cases the end of all this is wretchedness at home and loss of character and means of subsistence; if he is in a house of business he lives beyond his income, and embezzlement is the result. If he be in business on his own account his end is bankruptcy, at any rate his health is not benefited by his indulgence at the bar, and to most men who have to earn their daily bread loss of health is loss of employment and poverty, more or less enduring and grinding and complete. What the gin-shop is to the working man, the restaurant and the refreshment bar are to the middle cla.s.ses of society. There is no disgrace in dropping in there, and so the young man learns to become a sot. Planted as they are at all the railway termini, they are an ever-present danger; they are fitted up in a costly style, and the young ladies are expected to be as amiable and good-looking as possible, and thus when a young man has a few minutes to spare at a railway terminus, naturally he makes his way to the refreshment bar.

Dartmoor was full, writes the author of "Convict Life," with the men whom drink had led into crime-from the mean wretch who p.a.w.ned his wife's boots for ninepence, which he spent in the gin-shop, to the young man from the City who became enamoured "with one of the painted and powdered decoy-ducks who are on exhibition at the premises of a notorious publican within a mile of Regent Circus." At first he spent a s.h.i.+lling or two nightly; but he quickly found that the road to favour was at bottle of Moet, of which his _inamorata_ and her painted sisters partook very freely. The acquaintance soon ripened under the influence of champagne till he robbed his employer, and was sent to Dartmoor. "He told me himself," writes our author, "that from the time he first went to that tavern he never went to bed perfectly sober, and that all his follies were committed under the influence of champagne."

Another case he mentions was even worse. At the time of his conviction the young man of whom he writes was on the eve of pa.s.sing an examination for one of the learned professions; but be had been an _habitue_ of the buffet of let us call it the Royal Grill Room Theatre and a lounger at the stage door of that celebrated establishment, and had made the acquaintance of one of the ladies of the ballet. Under the influence of champagne he also soon came to grief. "In the name of G.o.d," says the writer to young men in London, "turn up taverns."

But what is to be done? The publican, whether he keeps a gin-palace or a refreshment bar, must push his trade. The total number of public-houses, beershops, and wine-houses in the Metropolitan Parliamentary boroughs is 8,973, or one to each 333 persons. This is bad; but Newcastle-on-Tyne is worse, having one public-house to 160 inhabitants, and Manchester has one to every 164 inhabitants. The amount paid in license-fees by publicans in the Metropolitan district last year amounted to 108,316; the total for the kingdom being 1,133,212. But great as is the number of these places, the trade flourishes. A licensed house in one of the finest parts of London (Bethnal Green), lately sold for upwards of 22,000.

Another, a third or fourth rate house in North London, sold for 18,000; other licensed houses sell for 30,000, 40,000, 50,000, and even more.

As to the refreshment bars, it lately came out in evidence that a partner in one of the firms most connected with them stated his income to be 40,000 a year. It is said one firm, whose business is chiefly devoted to refreshment bars, pays its wine merchants as much as 1,000 a week.

VIII.-IN AN OPIUM DEN.

An effort is being made by a band of British philanthropists, of which the Rev. Mr. Turner is secretary, to put down, if not the opium traffic, at any rate that part of it which is covered by the British flag. Opium is to the Chinese what the quid is to the British tar, or the gin-bottle to the London charwoman. But in reality, as I firmly believe, for the purpose of opening the door to all sorts of bribery and corruption, the traffic is prohibited as much as possible by the Chinese Government, for the ostensible object of preserving the health and morals of the people.

This task is a very difficult one. A paternal Government is always in difficulties, and once we Christian people of England have gone to war with the Chinese in order to make them take our Indian-grown opium-a manufacture in which a large capital is invested, and the duty of which yields the British Government in India a magnificent revenue. It is a question for the moralist to decide how far a Government is justified in saying to a people: "We know so and so is bad, but as you will use it, you may as well pay a heavy tax on its use." That is the practical way in which statesmen look at it, and of course there is a good deal to be said for that view. But it is not pleasant to feel that money, even if it be used for State purposes, is made in a dirty manner; though I have been in countries where the minister of the religion of holiness and purity is content to take a part of his living from the brothel-keeper and the prost.i.tute. Evidently there are many men as ready to take the devil's money as was Rowland Hill to accept the Bible at his hands.

But I am touching on questions not to be settled in the twinkling of an eye, or by a phrase or two in print. Perhaps I may best serve the cause of humanity if, instead of saying what I think and feel, I merely content myself with describing what I saw in the East-End of London, one Sat.u.r.day night, in this year of grace one thousand eight hundred and seventy-five.

Have my readers ever been in Bluegate Fields, somewhere down Ratcliffe Highway? The glory of the place is departed. I am writing _more Americano_, where the wickedest man in the town is always regarded as a hero. The City missionary and the East London Railway between them have reformed the place. To the outward eye it is a waste howling spot, but it is a garden of Eden to what it was when a policeman dared not go by himself into its courts, and when respectability, if it ever strayed into that filthy quarter, generally emerged from it minus its watch and coat, and with a skull more or less cracked, and with a face more or less b.l.o.o.d.y.

"Thanks to you," said a surgeon to a City missionary who has been labouring in the spot some sixteen years, and is now recognised as a friend wherever he goes, "thanks to you," said the surgeon, "I can now walk along the place alone, and in safety, a thing I never expected to do;" and I believe that the testimony is true, and that it is in such districts the labours of the City missionary are simply invaluable. Down in those parts what we call the Gospel has very little power. It is a thing quite outside the ma.s.s. There are chapels and churches, it is true, but the people don't go into them. I pa.s.s a great Wesleyan I chapel. "How is it attended?" I ask; and the answer is: "Very badly indeed." I hear that the nearest Independent chapel is turned into a School Board school; and there is Rehoboth,-I need not say it is a hyper place of wors.h.i.+p, and was, when Bluegate Fields was a teeming ma.s.s of G.o.dless men and women, only attended by some dozen or so of the elect, who prayed their prayers, and read their Bible, and listened to their parsons with sublime indifference to the fact that there at their very door, under their very eyes, within reach of their very hands, were souls to be saved, and brands to be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the burning, and jewels to be won for the Redeemer's crown. I can only hear of one preacher in this part who is really getting the people to hear him, and he is the Rev.

Harry Jones, who deserves to be made a bishop, and who would be, if the Church of England was wise and knew its dangers, and was careful to avert the impending storm, which I, though I may not live to see the day, know to be near. But let us pa.s.s, on leaving Rehoboth, a black and ugly carca.s.s, on the point of being pulled down by the navvy. I turn into a little court on my right, one of the very few the railway has spared for the present. It may be there are some dozen houses in the court. The population is, I should certainly imagine, quite up to the accommodation of the place. Indeed, if I might venture to make a remark, it would be to the effect that a little more elbow-room would be of great advantage to all. From every door across the court are ropes, and on these ropes the blankets and sheets and family linen are hanging up to dry. These I have to duck under as I walk along; but the people are all civil, though my appearance makes them stare, and all give a friendly and respectful greeting to the City missionary by my side.

All at once my conductor disappears in a little door, and I follow, walking, on this particular occasion, by faith, and not by sight; for the pa.s.sage was dark, and I knew not my way. I climb up a flight of stairs, and find myself in a little crib-it would be an abuse of terms to call it a room. It is just about my height, and I fancy it is a great deal darker and dingier than the room in which a first-cla.s.s misdemeanant like Colonel Baker was confined. The place is full of smoke. It is not at first that I take in its contents. As I stand by the door, there are two beds of an ancient character; between these beds is a very narrow pa.s.sage, and it is in this pa.s.sage I recognise the master of the house-a black-eyed, cheerful Chinaman, who has become so far naturalised amongst us as to do us the honour of taking the truly British name of Johnson.

Johnson is but thinly clad. I see the perspiration glistening on his dark and s.h.i.+ning skin; but Johnson seems as pleased to see me as if he had known me fifty years. In time, through the smoke, I see Johnson's friends-dark, perspiring figures curled on the beds around, one, for want of room, squatting, cross-legged, in a corner-each with a tube of the shape and size of a German flute in his hands. I look at this tube with some curiosity. In the middle of it is a little bowl. In that little bowl is the opium, which is placed there as if it were a little bit of tow dipped in tar, and which is set fire to by being held to the little lamps, of which there are three or four on the bed or in the room. This operation performed, the smoker reclines and draws up the smoke, and looks a very picture of happiness and ease. Of course I imitate the bad example; I like to do as the Romans do, and Johnson hands me a tube which I put into my mouth, while, as I hold it to the lamp, he inserts the heated opium into the bowl; and, as I pull, the thick smoke curls up and adds to the cloud which makes the room as oppressive as the atmosphere of a Turkish bath. How the little pig-eyes glisten! and already I feel that I may say: "Am I not a man and a brother?" The conversation becomes general. Here we are jolly companions every one. Ching tells me the Chinese don't send us the best tea; and grins all across his yellow face as I say that I know that, but intimate that they make us pay for it as if they did. Tsing smiles knowingly as I ask him what his wife does when he is so long away. Then we have a discussion as to the comparative merits of opium and beer, and my Chinese friends sagely observe that it is all a matter of taste. "You mans like beer, and we mans in our country like opium." All were unanimous in saying that they never had more than a few whiffs, and all that I could learn of its effects when taken in excess was that opium sent them off into a stupid sleep. With the somewhat doubtful confessions of De Quincey and Coleridge in my memory, I tried to get them to acknowledge sudden impulses, poetic inspirations, splendid dreams; but of such things these little fellows had never conceived; the highest eulogium I heard was: "You have pains-pain in de liver, pain in de head-you smoke-all de pains go." The most that I could learn was that opium is an expensive luxury for a poor man. Three-halfpenny-worth only gives you a few minutes' smoke, and these men say they don't smoke more at a time. Lascar Sall, a rather disreputable female, well known in the neighbourhood, would, they told me, smoke five s.h.i.+llings-worth of opium a day. Johnson's is the clubhouse of the Chinese. He buys the opium and prepares it for smoking, and they come and smoke and have a chat, and a cup of tea and a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter, and go back and sleep on board s.h.i.+p. Their little smoking seemed to do them no harm. The City missionary says he has never seen them intoxicated. It made them a little lazy and sleepy-that is all; but they had done their day's work, and had earned as much t.i.tle to a little indulgence as the teetotaler, who regales himself with coffee; or the merchant, who smokes his cigar on his pleasant lawn on a summer's eve. I own when I left the room I felt a little giddy, that I had to walk the crowded streets with care; but then I was a novice, and the effect would not be so great on a second trial. I should have enjoyed a cup of good coffee after; but that is a blessing to which we in London, with all our boasted civilisation, have not attained. I frankly avow, as I walked to the railway station, I almost wished myself back in the opium den. There I heard no foul language, saw no men and women fighting, no sots reeling into the gutters, or for safety sh.o.r.ed up against the wall.

For it was thus the mob, through which I had to pa.s.s, was preparing itself for the services of the sanctuary, and the rest of the Sabbath.

IX.-LONDON'S EXCURSIONISTS.

Most of my London readers know Southend. It is as pretty a place, when the tide is up and the weather is fine, as you can find anywhere near London. Standing on the cliff on a clear day it is a lovely panorama which greets your eye. At your feet rolls the n.o.ble river, to which London owes its greatness, and on which sail up and down, night and day, no matter how stormy the season may be, the commercial navies of the world. On the other side is the mouth of the Medway, with its docks and men-of-war; and farther still beyond rise those Kentish hills of which d.i.c.kens was so fond, and on the top of one of which he lived and died.

Look to the right, and you see over the broad expanse of waters and the marshy land, destined, perhaps, at some distant day to be formed into docks and to be crowded with busy life. Look at your left, and the old town, with its pier a mile and a quarter long, really looks charming in the summer sun. Or you see the s.h.i.+ngly beach, at one end of which-you learn by report of artillery-firing and the cloud of blue smoke curling to the sky-is s...o...b..ryness. Far away on the open sea, and on the other side, the tall cliffs of the Isle of Sheppey loom in the distance.