INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH.
VERY singular is the appearance of Leicester square, where are the
resorts and lodgings of the foreign colonists of London. It is the
dirtiest and darkest square in the city, with the exception of some of
the fields in the outer suburbs. On every side you may behold traces
of the foreign element which centres here. The people whom you meet in
Leicester square, if you ask them a question, will be sure to answer
you in a strange tongue, or else in a strange gibberish of English or
Continental patois. There is an acre or two of sickly grass in the
middle of the square which is guarded from the footsteps of pedestrians
by a rickety and worn iron railing. In the middle of this patch of
scanty grass is an equestrian statue of one of the Georges on an iron
horse, the nose of which has been broken or has rotted off, and its
appearance is in keeping with the buildings that tower all round it.
The streets leading to and from the square are filled with foreign
restaurants, and they are narrow and from them all issue forth smells
such as the olfactories of a traveler encounter in the back slums of
Paris or Vienna.
The buildings are shabby, the windows are shabby, and the people
sitting at the tables, whom you may see through the dusty windows,
rattling dominoes and playing cards at little tables, are shabby.
Were it not for the statue in the middle of the square, it might
be taken for the Gross Platz of a Continental town. Houses with
strange names rise on every side, having signs in their windows of
"Restaurant a la Carte," "Table d'hote a cinq heures," and are passed
in quick succession, and the linen-drapers and other shopkeepers in
the neighborhood take especial pains to inform all the passers-by that
their employees can speak German, French, and Italian, and occasionally
Spanish or Portuguese.
[Illustration: FOREIGN CAFE IN COVENTRY STREET.]
The loungers in the square give visible and olfactory demonstration
that they are not Cockneys; their tanned skins, long moustachios,
military coats, and brigand-like hats, their polite and impressive
bows,--all show the Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Polish exile, the
Italian revolutionist, and the Greek wine merchant. The mingled fumes
of tobacco and garlic, the peddlers who make desperate attempts to sell
you copies of the _Internationale_, _Patrie_, _Journal Pour Rire_, and
_Diritto_, all give ample evidence that you are in a strange quarter
of London. The lodging-houses here are on the Parisian plan, and are
let at five to ten shillings a week to mysterious men, who rise late,
and are away all day in the cafés or gaming-houses to come home singing
operatic airs at a late hour of the morning. Polish exiles, Italian
supernumeraries of the opera, French figurantes of the inferior grades,
German musicians, teachers and translators of languages, touters for
gambling-dens--all congregate here. This is their Arcadia--their place
of meeting, eating, drinking and sleeping--and for a hundred years past
it has been frequented by such parasites.
[Sidenote: LEICESTER SQUARE.]
Here in this very square in one of the houses which form the "Hotel
Sabloniere," lived Peter the Great and his boon companion, the Marquis
of Carmaerthen; and in this square they have reeled home night after
night; the master of all the Russias half-crazy with his potations of
strong brandy and red pepper, of which he was passionately fond. Up
yonder stairs passed Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, in her powder,
hoops, and patches, her train glistening under the glaring lights of
the link boys who preceded her sedan chair, to the wedding of John
Spencer, first Earl Spencer, and Miss Poyntz--bearing a case of jewels
valued at £100,000, and a pair of shoe buckles valued at £30,000, for
presentation to the beautiful bride.
The old-fashioned house opposite was the abode of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
and the one at the corner of Sydney's Alley was the residence of
William Hogarth, the bitterest and yet the truest caricaturist of
his day. Here nightly came Samuel Johnson with his huge bulk and big
walking-stick, to dogmatize with Reynolds, and with him came his toady,
Boswell; and here came Goldsmith to read his "Deserted Village" to
his coterie of choice spirits--and here Frederick, the "Good Prince
of Wales," as he has been called to distinguish him from all the rest
of his title, came to die of a bad cold which he caught walking in
Kew Gardens in 1751; and here resided John Hunter, in the house now
occupied by a humbug keeping a Turkish bath. It is a place of strange,
quaint memories of good and brave, base and ignoble men and women in
the past; it is now the Alcedama of licensed vice, the festering spot
of all London.
It is now a place where wantons expose their shame; where social
rottenness, winked at by the authorities, eats at the heart of a people
who publish and read books condemning the depravity of Paris; who, in a
pharisaical way, talk of the Mabille and the Quartier Breda, and yet in
this very square is the "Royal Alhambra Palace," as it is called in the
huge colored posters; and in the daily advertisements in all of the
morning and evening papers of the metropolis, you may read such notices
as these:
"The Alhambra--This evening at 8 o'clock, 'Pierrot,' the grand ballet,
by Mr. Harry Boleno and troupe.
"The Alhambra--At 9 o'clock, the Christy Minstrels, by Riviere.
"The Alhambra--At 10 o'clock, the magnificent spectacular ballet, 'The
Spirit of the Deep;' 10:15, Pitteri, the graceful and world-renowned
danseuse, in a new grand pas seul; 10:30, 'The Home of the Naiads;'
11:15, grand Spanish ballet, 'Pepita.' 'God Save the Queen' at 11:45.
Prices: Promenade, 1s.; stall and balcony, 2s.; gallery, 6d.; reserved
seats, 4s.; new tier of private boxes, 2 guineas, 31s. 6d., and 21s.
Closes at 12."
It was a rainy, unpleasant night--such a night as is often met with in
London--when I first paid a visit to the Alhambra. The streets were
deserted, and few persons were out of their houses, and those who were
out took to cover in the cabs, which went madly dashing by, or in the
busses, with their advertising signs, that were visible as they passed
a lamp--the horses steaming and sweating, and the passengers inside
grumbling and cursing their luck because of the bad air within and
worse weather without.
[Sidenote: THE ROYAL ALHAMBRA PALACE.]
Nothing in the streets looked pleasant or cheerful, excepting the
windows of the gin-shops with their bright brass and metal pumps, and
the gaudy placards giving a list of the beverages for sale in the
"publics," where men and women of the humbler class were consuming
large quantities of beer and spirits. Passing through the Haymarket,
I went down Coventry street, and in a few minutes stood before the
gorgeous, gilded façade of the Alhambra. The building is about five
stories high, painted of a cream-color, with minarets and gilt vanes
and turrets in imitation of the manner of Owen Jones. The attempt to
copy the Moresco style is rather absurd in the midst of common-place
London. Indeed, it would be hard to find a Court of Lions in the
building, and those who look for that most beautiful feature of the
real Alhambra will go away disappointed. There is, however, a Court of
Female Tigresses in the gallery up stairs which will compensate the
curious for the absence of the Court of Lions. Though the streets were
deserted, a large number of cabs stood at the front of the building and
crowds of people were getting in and getting out of them.
The moon peeped just then from a bank of cloud, its rays breaking over
the disfigured statue in the square, and threw a faint dead glare on
the flaunting women who filled the passage leading to the Alhambra;
the helmeted policemen; the porters in their black caps trimmed with
red bands; the noisy, swearing cabmen disputing about their fares; the
horses champing and biting, and the beggar boys and match-women who
solicited languid swells to purchase their wares. It is the custom
to give a penny to the men or boys who eagerly rush to open the door
of your cab, and should you neglect them, they will follow until by
wearying you they have achieved their object. There was a little hole
in the wall, and a counter or desk, behind which was a sharp-looking
young man, whose face seemed hard and cynical under the glare of the
gas-jet over his head. Handing this man a shilling, I received a huge
circular piece of tin, with a hole and letters punched in its surface.
This was the ticket of admission, which I surrendered at the door to a
big man in a red uniform, who looked like a Life Guardsman, his breast
being all covered with service medals, but for what service I could not
tell, or where performed.
Passing a wooden barrier, I caught a glimpse of lights, a stage, and
legs of ballet-girls--a noise of many voices came by my ears, a number
of young ladies smoking cigarettes opened a way for me to pass, and I
stood inside of the Alhambra. I found myself in the promenade, which
encircled the ground floor of the house, leaving a large space which
was railed in for the wives and families of decent people who wanted to
hear the music and see the dancing and pantomime. To walk in and around
the promenade costs one shilling. To go inside of the railing in the
space--which corresponds with the parquette at Niblo's, only that the
whole floor is level and there is no descent here--will cost another
shilling.
I saw a bar and a bar-maid before I got actually into the place from
whence the stage could be seen; there was a bar and three bar-maids
half-way down the promenade, and there was a bar and two bar-maids down
before me in the alcove leading to the Canteen, with a corresponding
number of bars and bar-maids in the same positions on the other side of
the house.
All these bars had splendid bottles, with various fluids in them,
arranged with an eye to effect, making it look like a vast apothecary's
window, and there were bright brass beer-pumps all in a row, and pewter
and silver and metal pots and tankards, and oval glass frames with
pies, sandwiches, and all kinds of lunches to satisfy the thirst and
appetites of the audience. The promenade was choked with men and women,
walking past each other, looking at the stage, drinking at the bars,
chaffing each other in a rough way, and laughing loudly. Although the
night was stormy without, the revelry was high within.
Perhaps in this audience of three thousand people, who filled the
ground floor and galleries, standing and sitting, and eating and
drinking, there might have been fifteen hundred women, all well, and
many of them fashionably, dressed and gloved. A sergeant of police with
me said:
"If there are 1,500 women here to-night, as I believe there are, you
may be sure that there are 1,200 women of the town among that number,
Sir."
Twelve hundred unfortunate women in one place of amusement--and half a
dozen other places like this, but of an inferior class, are open this
rainy, unpleasant night, with a like complement of wretched females
recklessly passing the hours that intervene before the dens close at
midnight. The crash of sixty pieces of fine music falls on the ear, the
glare, the gas, the tinsel on the stage, the well-dressed, fine-faced
women around cannot shut out my thoughts of the "Legion of the Lost"
who are so merry, so thoughtless, so careless of the morrow--deep in
the fallacies of sin and despair.
[Sidenote: THE SOCIAL EVIL.]
The men who are conversing with these women seem to be of a good class,
and spend a good deal of money in refreshments and liquor upon their
fair, frail acquaintances. These last are not allowed to go inside
of the railing on the ground floor alone, but they do not care for
that privilege, as there is plenty to drink outside and more of the
company of the male gender. Whenever a woman on the stage capers more
vigorously, or flings her leg higher than the others, the applause is
loud, long, and continued, and pewter and metal pots are dented in the
surfaces of the tables that are ranged before each red-cushioned seat.
The comic singers are the favorites of the audience, however, and are
always encored with vociferous enthusiasm. These singers get in a place
like the Alhambra as much as ten pounds a week, as the proprietors
know well the value of their services. The pantomimes are of the very
best kind I ever saw; the dancing is, of its kind, good; the orchestra
excellent and full in numbers, the acrobatic performances very fine,
and the picture at the close of the pantomime is really superb.
Yet with all these excellences combined, if the Alhambra and every
Music-Hall-Hell like it in London were suddenly scorched up by a fire
from Heaven, it would be the most incomparable benefit ever bestowed
upon the English metropolis, and a saving grace to thousands of young
English men and women--both in body and soul.
And the reason for this is that women are allowed admission at the door
on payment of the price, without the escort of a man. Consequently it
is, with the exception of the Argyle, and Holborn Casino, the greatest
place of infamy in all London. It is convenient, in a central location,
and were women not admitted alone the business of the place would break
up. The men under twenty-five years of age, who comprise the largest
part of the male audience, would not come were these Formosas debarred
from admission. The performance--a first-class one--is not heeded. The
chief attraction is the women.
And are these women calculated, by their manner, dress or appearance,
to shock or warn people by their degradation? On the contrary they are
cheerful, pleasant-looking girls, of quite fair breeding, and of a far
better taste in their dress than the honest wives and sweethearts of
the mechanics and shopkeepers, who sit in the place of virtue, within
the painted railing. These women are satisfied with their lot, and do
not repine so long as they have male acquaintances or "friends," as
they call them, to give them champagne, moselle, and late suppers of
game and native oysters in the Café de l'Europe, or at Barnes's in the
Haymarket. Despite the arguments of those who have sought to eradicate
the evil, these women, to any great number, never forsake their calling
for the life of an honest working-woman. They laugh at such an idea,
and will tell you that they could not do without wine, rich food, and
costly dresses, even at the fearful price they have given to obtain
them.
Besides, there is no field open to them, and suspicion follows every
effort for reformation made by the few who have left the life of
prostitution to go to hard work or service. They look down upon
shop-girls and bar-maids with contempt, and many of them keep servants
from the gains of their infamy. Whenever one of these girls happens to
notice a stranger who does not seem to know the place, she will not
hesitate to walk up to him, take his arm, and ask him: "Come, won't you
give me my liquor?"
Many of these women have had no education whatever; still they manage
to conceal the fact as much as possible, while others will tell you
that they came originally from the workhouse, where they were sent as
children, and being thrown on the streets when grown up, had no means
of making a living but that which they were compelled to adopt. I spoke
to one lady-like girl who seemed to be rather abstracted, and asked her
if she were not tired of her present life, and anxious to leave it.
"Tired of my life? You may believe it that I am; but what of that. No
one would take me by the hand after leaving this life. I am not such a
fool as to jump from the frying pan into the fire. I get tight about
twice a week, and then I come here and talk and drink more, and that
serves to pass away the time. My friend is in Paris, and he sends me
money when I want it. My mother is dead and my father is in America. I
don't know where, and I don't care much, for he never bothered himself
about me. Are you going to treat?"
I saw this girl walk up to the bar ten minutes after, pushing her way
through the crowd, and saw her toss off nearly half a pint of raw gin,
or "gin neat," as it is called here, without winking. Such is life.
The detective told me that the girl had been one of the flashiest and
best-dressed women who visited the Alhambra until a few months before,
when she began drinking, and rapidly descended, when she had to pawn
all her jewelry.
[Sidenote: "WOTTEN WOW."]
The songs sung in the Alhambra are not quite as low as those heard in
some of the music-halls, and chiefly derive their short popularity from
the fact that there is a comic vein in each one. Sentimental songs are
not so popular, and do not receive so many encores as the comic ones.
A man came on the stage, dressed in the exaggerated costume of a Pall
Mall lounger, who sang a song, of which the following is a verse, with
a very affected voice and lisp, keeping his body bent in a painful
position the while:
THE BEAU OF WOTTEN WOW.
Now evewy sumwah's day
I always pass my time away;
Arm in arm with fwiends I go,
And stwoll awound sweet Wotten Wow;
For that's the place, none can deny,
To see blooming faces and laughing eye;
And if your hawts with love would glow,
Why, patwonize sweet Wotten Wow.
_Chorus_:
So come young gents and dont be slow,
But stylish dwess and each day go,
And view the beauties to and fwo,
Who dwive and wide wound Wotten Wow.
The chief merit in the singing of this song to the audience--was the
affected lisp and farcical airs of the singer, who did his best to
imitate the swells who lean over the railings in Rotten Row, when that
fashionable drive is crowded with equestrians and foot passengers in
the regular London season. The mob liked the satire on the aristocrats
and relished all the local hits of the speech and the dress of the
ideal do-nothing. Something of a more grotesque nature, and more
broadly funny, which was cheered to the echo, was a nonsensical song
called the "Royal Beast Show," that seemed to please the men and
women in the audience. This song was sung by a man in a blood-red
scarf, a pea-green body coat, and green glass goggles. The costume was
indicative of nothing under heaven or earth that I ever saw before,
but the song was exactly suited to the comprehension of the people, as
their shouts of laughter testified:
THE ROYAL BEAST SHOW.
Come, stand aside, good people all, and hear vot I've got to say,
But let the little dears come hup, wot's going for to pay.
At all the coorts in Europe, we are reckoned quite the go:
Then pay yer sixpences, and see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
_Chorus._
The cammomiles, the crockodiles, and all that you could wish;
The mice and rats, and tabby cats, and other kinds of fish;
A dozen sphinxes hupside down and standing hin a row;
Hits only sixpence heach to see the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The first one is the Kangaroo, you ought to see him jump;
The next one is the Ippopotymus, you ought to see 'is hump;
The third one is the Halligator, and he's such a one to crow,
He wakes hus hevery morning in the Royal Wild Beast Show.
The Donkey in the corner, with the Tiger hon 'is harm,
Comes from Hass-iriya, vere once his father kept a farm;
That Billy-Goat that's dressed in Pink and valking rayther slow,
He's wery _Horn_-imental in a Royal Wild Beast show.
The cammomiles, &c.
After these choice ballads had been sung, there was a ballet in which
about fifty young ladies capered and pranced in a Bower of Angels,
with a lot of dolphins, just like dolphins and angels in their mutual
festivities in the other world: and then the detective who accompanied
me, said:
[Sidenote: IN THE CANTEEN.]
"Would you like to see the Canteen? That's a werry 'igh old game is the
Canteen; sort of priveet like."
[Illustration: CANTEEN OF THE ALHAMBRA.]
The Canteen of the Alhambra is situated on the lower floor of the
building, under the stage, and has a dark entrance through a door
which is supported on swinging hinges. The descent is by a spiral
flight of stone steps, and on going through this door, the stranger
receives the idea that he is going behind the scenes, which is a great
mistake. The proprietors have made the entrance as dark and mysterious
as possible, in order to throw a kind of greenroom air about it, which
captivates simple people, and induces them to spend more money than
they would otherwise. It is, in fact (this Canteen), nothing more than
a subterranean bar-room, where men treat to Champagne wine and Moselle
cup, the ballet-girls who come down, wrapped in travelling-cloaks;
and after each ballet is concluded, flirt, drink, and make eligible
acquaintances. The bar is in the form of a half circle, and two very
largely framed women were behind it this night, serving the customers,
who sit around on wooden benches. The ceiling is supported by rude
posts, and everything is as uncouth as possible; and this gives it an
additional charm to countrymen. They feel that they are doing something
sinful, something indiscreet, which they would not like to have their
wives or relations hear of, and, with the natural perversity of human
nature, it is enjoyable to a corresponding degree. The waiters who
bring the drinks and cigars from the bar, wear black dress-coats and
red plush waist coats.
When I descended to the Canteen, the ballet was still on above us, and
I could hear the tramping of the feet of the dancers as they bounded to
and fro on the stage boards over my head. There were no ballet girls in
the Canteen, but in a few minutes the strains of the dance music died
away and down came the coryphees, trooping by twos and threes, their
faces painted and chalked, and their white slippers and tights peeping
out from the bottoms of the gray waterproof cloaks which they wore.
They took their seats in the room on the wooden benches, and it was
not long until each ballet girl found her male affinity, and of course
the male affinity treated her to whatever the dear creature called
for--however expensive. In such a moment, when these angels in tissue
condescend to talk to mortals, who could think of expense.
There were a number of soldiers in the room, wearing the uniforms of
different regiments, chiefly of the Household troops, with here and
there a line private in buff and blue; a rifleman in dark green, or
an artilleryman, with his gorgeous red facings and trimmings. But the
angels of the ballet never wasted their time on such low people as
common soldiers. Their game was much higher, and if they could not
get a drink from an officer holding her Majesty's commission, they
were content with stray Americans, who have a reputation for reckless
liberality. In fact, Americans rank above par in the Canteen market,
and are received with due honor.
[Sidenote: THE OLD SINNER.]
I saw one old gentleman, fully six feet high, with a venerable face
and white whiskers, evidently of a respectable position in society,
with his arm around the chalked neck of a girl of fifteen, whose light
brown curls fell in masses over her shoulders, and, while he talked
with her, he supplied her quickly-emptied glass with a sparkling wine.
The detective said, in explanation of the scene, to me:
[Illustration: THE OLD SINNER.]
"You see, sir, these gals as is down here in the Canteen only gets ten
to sixteen shillin' a week for their night's work, and that isn't much.
They is only the figurantys, and can't dance a bit; but they gets a bad
fashion from the swells who go behind the scenes a drinkin' champagne
and sich like, and that fashion leads them to wuss nor hannything that
you'll see 'ere. They comes down here and drinks between the balley,
and then goes hup on to the stage and dances again, and comes down
hagain after the next balley, and by the time the Alhambra closes
they are so blessed tight that they are ready for hanythink. I means,
of course, the gals as is innocent yet; but the old hands are werry
knowin' cards, so they is, bless you."
"That little gal as is just now a takin' that gentleman's address is a
werry downy gal, she is. They calls her the 'Daisy,' because she has a
fondness for bokays, and she is hup to all sorts of games. She 'ad some
kind of a heddykation, when she was a little gal, and I thinks she was
a governess or sich like once, and went to the dogs through somebody's
fault; and she writes a beautiful hand, she does, and her little game
is to send letters to strangers who visit London for the first time and
don't know what to do with their money, and full of affekshun and such
gammon--and tells them, in the writin' as 'ow she seed better days and
axes their parding for givin' so much trouble--and 'opes they won't
think the wuss of her for such freedom or liberty; and then she gets a
few pun from the spooney, and she goes on a habsolutely hawful drunk
for a few days and doesn't come to the rehearsal--and when the money is
all spent she writes more letters and 'umbugs some other spoon. Oh, she
_is werry_ deep, is the 'Daisy.'"
The "Tulip," the other young girl, according to the story of the
policeman, was famous for her aptitude in swearing and drinking
"Stout"; otherwise there was nothing of special interest in her
character, and her face, though a pretty one, was strongly marked
with lines of dissipation. By the time that I was ready to leave the
Canteen, having seen all that was worth seeing in the den (for it is
a den, and nothing else) which has been the cause of many a promising
youth's ruin, it was nearly eleven o'clock.
[Sidenote: THE SIX PENNY GALLERY.]
We paid another shilling to go up in the "Gallery," where there is not
the slightest disguise in the conduct of the females who throng the
place. Back of the gallery, in the corridors, where the performance
can be seen over the heads of the men who stand in front, are ranged
a number of bars, and at each end of this place, which forms a kind
of saloon, small tables with marble tops. At these tables a number of
men and women sat and drank and laughed, and told each other anecdotes
more pointed than polished in their application. The clamor and the
smoke made the place unbearable, and the strains of music from the
orchestra, playing Weber's "Last Waltz," filled the vast building with
its circular galleries, that were heaped one upon another, to the
ceiling. Up in the highest gallery of all, where the admittance is
only sixpence, the riff-raff were collected. When a woman goes to the
six-penny gallery in the Alhambra she is indeed lost beyond all hope of
rescue.
I came down disgusted, and on going below stairs to the first tier I
found there a kid glove, fan, and bouquet stand. It is the fashion for
the young men of this pious city of London, who have more money than
brains, when they visit the Alhambra, to buy kid gloves or fans for
the unfortunates who throng the place. Quite a trade is done in this
way, as some of the swells are not satisfied, when intoxicated, unless
they can prevail upon their feminine friends to accept of a slight
trifle of their esteem in the shape of a dozen pairs of fine kids in
a gilt box. The man at the glove stand told me that business in the
season--when people came home from the Continent--was very brisk, and
he said that in one night he had sold as many as nineteen dozen kids to
be presented to the Formosas of the place.
The detective said to me as we went down stairs: "Suppose we go to the
Argyle, in the 'Aymarket, and then finish with the Casino and Barnes's;
they'll be very lively just now, I warrant ye, and the fun grows
furious near midnight." I assented to this proposal, and we took a cab
and went to the Argyle Rooms. The cabby put his tongue in his cheek
when I said "Argyle Rooms," and drove us there. I gave him eighteen
pence, and he desired to know if I didn't want to borrow the price of
admission, because I refused to give him half a crown for a ride of a
thousand feet.
[Illustration]