That man to man, the warld o’er,
Shall brithers be for a’ that.
The “Victoria,” New Cut.
Of all the healthy signs of real social progress in this remarkable
age, I know of none more striking, or, I will add, more thankworthy in
a small way, than the contrast of the present condition of the big
People’s Theatre in Southwark with that which middle-aged men can
remember. Probably many of my readers who in the fifties and sixties
held it to be part of the whole duty of man to attend the University
boat-race at Putney, or the Oxford and Cambridge match at Lord’s, will
be able to call up in their memories the “Vic.” of those days. For my
own part, I always felt that the big costermonger’s theatre suffered
unfairly in reputation--as many folk and places before it have done--for
the casual notice of a man of genius. “Give us the Charter,” Charles
Kingsley makes his tailor-hero exclaim in 1848, “and we’ll send workmen
into Parliament who shall find out whether something better can’t be
put in the way of the boys and girls in London who live by theft and
prostitution, than the tender mercies of the Victoria.” I do not pretend
to anything more than a casual acquaintance with the “Vic.” in those
days; but my memory would not bear out Parson Lot in denouncing it as “a
licensed pit of darkness.”, That description would far better designate
the Cider Cellars, the Coal Hole, and other fashionable resorts on the
north side of the Thames, in which a working man’s fustian jacket
and corduroys were never seen. I should say that one evening spent
at Evans’s in those days, or at the mock Court (the judge and jury)
presided over by Baron Nicholson, as that rotund old cynic was called,
would have done any youngster far more harm than half a dozen at the
“Vic.” At the one you might sit smoking cigars and drinking champagne,
if you were fool enough, and hear everything that was sacred and decent
slily or openly ridiculed and travestied, in the company of M.P.’s,
barristers, and others, all well-dressed people. At the “Vic.” you could
rub shoulders with costers and longshoremen, noisy, rowdy, and prone
to fight on the slightest provocation, while the entertainment was
more than coarse enough, but quite free from the subtle poison of a
crim.-con. trial presided over by Baron Nicholson. With this saving,
however, I am bound to admit that the old “Vic.” was not a place which
could have been looked on without serious misgivings by any one in the
remotest degree responsible for peace or decency in South London. The
influence which it exercised, to put it mildly, though undoubtedly
powerful, could by no possibility have had any elevating effect on the
intellect or morals of any human being; but for all that, it was
always a favourite place of resort, and had a strong hold on the dense
population who earn a scanty and precarious living in the New Cut and
the Old Kent Road. How it was that the lease of the old “Vic.,” with
seventeen years still to run, came into the market some eight years
back, I am not aware; but so it happened, and it was purchased by a
financial Company, who, with the best intentions, embarked on the risky
experiment of running the “Royal Victoria Hall,” as it was now called,
as a coffee-tavern and place of entertainment, against the neighbouring
music-halls in which drink was sold. In eight months the Company lost
£2800, and the Victoria was closed, with every chance of drifting back,
on the next change of ownership, into the old ruts. Happily for South
London, a better fate was in store for the “Vic.,” for there were those
who had eyes to see its value if properly handled, not, indeed, as a
commercial speculation, but as a power for lifting the social life of
the neighbourhood on to a higher level. A committee was formed, with the
late Mr. Samuel Morley as chairman, and Miss Cons as honorary secretary
and manager, a guarantee fund was raised, and the Hall reopened. It has
been a hard fight; but with a chairman whose speech in the darkest hour
rang, “We don’t mean to let this thing fall to the ground,” and a lady
of unsurpassed experience and devotion amongst the poor, whose whole
life was from the first freely and loyally given to the work, the field
has been won. I say deliberately “won,” and if any one doubts my word,
let him walk over Waterloo Bridge any evening (for the “Vic.” is always
open), and look at this thing fairly; let him go into the coffee-tavern,
the theatre, the big billiard and smoking-rooms, the reading and
class-rooms at the top, and the gymnasium in the basement, and keep his
ears and eyes wide open all the time,--and then go home and thank God
that such work is going on in the very quarter of our huge city in which
the need is sorest. I say, let him go any evening, but for choice I
would advise a Tuesday, for on Tuesdays the “Penny Science Lectures”
are given, which are, of course, less popular than the variety
entertainments and the ballad concerts which occur whenever the funds
allow, or some first-rate artist, such as Sims Beeves, volunteers to
come and sing to the Hew Cut. To return to the “Penny Science Lectures,”
the wonder is, not that eminent men should be ready to go over to
Southwark and give them without payment--that note of our day has become
too common to surprise--but that an average of over five hundred, mostly
of the _gamin_ age, from the Hew Cut, should be ready to pay their penny
and come, and listen, and appreciate.
It was on May Day that I visited the old “Vic.,” almost by chance, and
without a notion of what I was likely to see or hear. The lecture was on
“The Foundation-Stones of London,” and proved to be a geological, not an
archæological one. Mr. H. Kimber, M.P. for the neighbouring division
of South London, was in the chair, and the lecturer was Professor Judd,
F.R.S., who, in a clear, terse address, aided by excellent dissolving
views projected by limelight on the huge drop-scene of the stage,
showed the gravel, clay, chalk, and lower strata, with the fossils found
in each, with admirable clearness. The big theatre was not, of course,
full, but there was a large audience, quite up to the average of upwards
of five hundred, and any one at all used to such scenes could see how
keenly interested they were, and how quick to seize the lecturer’s
points. Most of the men were in their working clothes, but clean and
brushed up, and no lecturer could have wished for a better audience. The
only thing that brought back to my mind the slightest remembrance of the
old “Vic.” was, that by a coster in the centre of the front row of the
pit sat a big brindled bull-terrier of the true fighting type. Strange
to say, he remained looking at the views with perfect gravity till the
lecturer made his bow, when he jumped quietly down at once, and trotted
about the pit to find friends, as though he had learned all he could,
and wanted to talk it over with pals, but was not interested in the
formal vote-of-thanks business. On the three following Tuesdays, as the
bills informed me, “The Moon,” “The Circulation of the Blood,” and “The
Backbone of England,” were the subjects, all, again, illustrated by
dissolving views. And these lectures are kept up on every Tuesday, such
speakers as the Dean of Westminster, Sir John Lubbock, Professor Seeley,
taking their turn with the purely scientific men, and drawing as good
attendances.
You must find room for one specimen of the quick humour of this New Cut
audience. Dr. Carpenter, in one of his experiments, dispensed with a
prism, explaining to his audience that the objects would now appear
inverted, and they must “put them right way up” in their minds,--“or
stand on yer ’eds,” came the prompt suggestion from the gallery. Out
of these lectures science-classes have grown in the last three years,
encouraged by a committee, selected from the Council, of some hundred
ladies and gentlemen. Of these I have no space to speak; but one fact
will indicate the thoroughness of the work done at them. Dr. Fleming’s
report for 1887 tells us that out of forty students who went in for
examination in the several classes, seven obtained first-class, and
eighteen second-class certificates. I have only touched on what, after
all, is an outgrowth, which has developed naturally from the original
scheme, but was no part of it. This was rational and hearty and clean
amusement. The Council were determined to test whether an answer could
not be found to the straight question of “Poor Potlover” in Punch:--
“Where’s this cheap and respectable fun
To be spotted by me? There’s the kink!