In foreign lands, we are told, is something refined and delicate. I have
been to some abroad which certainly were nothing of the kind; but in
England, or rather in London, they are low, blackguard places, whether in
the Holborn Casino, or Covent Garden, or the Grecian Saloon, or Vauxhall,
or at Drury-lane. In 1723 they were put down by government. Steele
wrote of them, that in his time, "the misfortune of the thing is, that
people dress themselves in what they have a mind to be--and not what they
are fit for." I have seen the French men and women at Vauxhall, and if
they do in Paris what they do there--why, then I doubt somewhat of the
superiority even of French Bal Masques. But in England a public Bal
Masque is a disgusting exhibition, to enjoy which every moral sense must
be deadened, and then a man must be drunk and have his pockets well
lined. The rustic flower-girls and simple hay-makers with whom you dance
will drink champagne as if it were ginger-beer, and consume all the
delicacies of the season as if they cost no more than bacon and beans.
The fun, as it is termed, generally commences about 11 P.M., by an
immense mob of costermongers, tag-rag and bob-tail, forming themselves in
a row under the _surveillance_ of the police, to watch and criticise the
appearance of the maskers, and specially to regale themselves with jokes
should any unfortunate do the economical and arrive on foot. I hear
people say they like London--they can do anything they like without being
observed. I doubt that much. I advise the strong-minded female who
tells me that, to walk down Cheapside in a Bloomer costume, and I will
warrant she will have as great a mob accompanying her as followed Kossuth
or any other hero to Guildhall. But to return to the Bal Masque. I
presume the company are arriving and the little boys are cheering, as
only little boys can, right under cab wheels and in between the horses'
legs. Some of the company, to borrow an ancient witticism, go disguised
as gentlemen--some buy a mask at the door for fourpence--others delight
in monstrous noses and fearful moustache--others, especially those who
have fancy dresses, appear as Charles II.s, Cardinal Wolseys,
Shakspeares, Henry VIII.s, Scotch Highlanders, Australian Diggers, Monks,
and look far better when they enter than they do when they make their
exit in the early light of a summer morning. The same remark holds true
of their female companions, who are mostly the same ladies that you meet
in Regent-street in the afternoon, or hanging about the Hay-market all
night, a class at no time remarkable for modesty, but whom we shall see
in the course of the evening becoming bold and brazenfaced with
excitement and wine. But the theatre is full--the guests are met--the
band is assembled--the leader wields the baton--the sparkling chandeliers
give a lustre to the scene, and away they bound to the music, whilst from
the boxes and the gallery admiring crowds look down. Yes, there is a
wild excitement in the hour, which stirs even the pulses of old blood.
The women, as debardeurs, flower girls, sailor boys--many of them with
faces fitting them for diviner lives, look beautiful even in their
degradation and shame. Horace tells us, wherever we go black care gets
up and rides behind. Is it so? Can there be sad hearts beneath those
gay exteriors? Do those cheeks flushed and radiant eyes indicate that
they belong to those whom all moralists have held infamous, all religions
condemned, and whose existence our modern civilization perpetuates and
deplores? Is man an immortal being, sent here for awhile to triumph over
fleshly lusts and passions, to learn to trample as dross on the vanities
of earth, and to set his affections on things above? Is it true that the
most successful votaries of pleasure, from kingly Solomon to lordly
Byron, have borne the same testimony to them, that they are not worth the
gathering, that they are but as apples gathered by the shore of the Dead
Sea, fair to the eye but deadly to the taste, and that in no way can they
answer the need and aspirations of the heart of man, which is greater and
grander than them all? Have we paid ministers of religion, bishops and
archbishops, millions and millions of pounds to teach men these few
self-evident truths, and yet do such orgies as those of which we write
not merely exist but flourish, as if we had accepted the creed of the
Atheist,--"Let us eat and drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die"?
To-morrow! who around us now thinks of to-morrow? Not the young rake
chaffing and dancing before us, whose mirth is the delirium of
forgetfulness and the intoxication of wine, whose to-morrow is
Whitecross-street Prison or the Insolvent Debtors' Court. Not that
brazenfaced woman now arrayed in splendour, and surrounded by her
admirers, whose to-morrow is old age, neglect, and a garret. Not those
grey-headed gouty old sinners in the boxes, who have not the excuse of
youth for the follies with which they desecrate old age. And certainly
not that pale clerk, who has most probably embezzled his employer's
money, and who is frantically exclaiming, "Waiter, another bottle of
champagne," as he tells the women of his lot that he feels "a cup too
low." You say he has them to cheer him. Yes, till his money is gone.
When he is at Bow-street, as assuredly he will soon be, I promise you
they will not be the last to give evidence as to his possession of funds,
or the manner of his spending them. There may be honour among thieves,
there is none among women when they have once lost their own.
Still gaily goes on the dancing. Then there is supper and wine--and more
dancing, and more music, and more wine. The reporters for the papers
generally leave about supper-time, and state that the gaieties were
prolonged till a late hour; it is well they do this. In the earlier part
of the evening the rioting and chaffing is somewhat of the coarsest, and
the wit somewhat of the poorest; and the later it grows, and the more
potent is the vinous influence, the less select, or rather the more
obscene, is the phraseology. In the wild saturnalia that ensues, all the
restraints of decency and habit are thrown on one side. It is time to
close, and the conductor sees this. Already Henry VIII. is right royally
drunk, and Cardinal Wolsey is uttering flat blasphemy, and one monk has
got a black eye, another a bloody nose. Unless, as in the case of Covent
Garden, the theatre is burned down, and the proceedings are abruptly
terminated, there is a final dance,--a patriotic rendering of the
national anthem,--and into the air walk, or rather tumble, the
debauchees, some to go home quietly to bed, others to keep it up in the
nearest coffee-houses and public-houses; and handmaidens rising early to
take in the milk in various parts of the metropolis are astonished by the
exceedingly unsteady gait and singular costumes of various dismal gents,
who have, if they are not absolute fools, sworn that it will be a long
time before they go to another masque bal. Such, I believe, is the
general conclusion, the only exceptions being the costumier who provides
the dresses, generally a Jew, and the bigger Jew who furnishes the wine.