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adorable things, it has faults. I am ready to confess that the cheap mind, which finds Beauty only in that loathly quality called Refinement, will suffer many pains by a sojourn in its byways. It will fill them with ashen despair. In the old jolly days it was filthy; it was full of perils, smelly, insanitary, crumbling; but at least one could live in it. To-day it has been taken in hand by those remote Authorities who make life miserable for us. It is reasonably

he and ridiculous. It sprawls. It is permanently overhung with mist. It has all the virtues of the Lo

all the old lovely things that help the human heart to float and flow along its winding courses. If you inform the palate of the mind by flavours, then life in Queen's Gate must be a round of labour and lassitude, and, from the rich faces that pass you in the I

of street and sky and water, sprinkled with a million timid stars, is an ecstasy. You cannot name it. You see it first as blue, then as purple, then lilac, rose, silver. The clouds that fl

them. The waters were swift and limpid, flecked with bold light. The gay public-house at the Dock gates shone sharp, like a cut gem. Georgie had never toured the Island before, and he enjoyed it thoroughly. As we s

phrase I exclude the foreign quarters and the Isle of Dogs. These he does not regard as part of London. His acquaintance among waiters alone is a matter for wonder. At odd times you may meet him in a bar with

"This is young Tommy. This is Frank from the Cornhill Chop House," or

you will get. He can tell you in an instant what is the prime dish at any obscure little eating-house and the precise moment at which it is on the table. He knows the best house for cabbage, and the house to be avoided if you are thinking of potatoes. He knows where to go for sausage and mashed, and he can reel off a number of places which must be avoided when their haricot mutton is on. He knows when the boiled beef is most à la mode at Wilkinson's, when the pudding at the "Cheshire Cheese" is just so, and when the undercut at Simpson's is most to be desired. You meet him, say, on Tuesday, and, in

o their northern homes, or work-girls from the northern factories to their homes in the Island. The little, softly lighted toy and sweetstuff shops gleamed upon us out of the greyness, and the tins of hot saveloys and baked apples, which the hawkers were offering, smelt appetizi

ea. In nearly every house in this district you will find, at about six or seven o'clock, in the living-room of the establishment, a good old hot stew going, or tripe and onions, or fish and potatoes, or a meat-pudding; and this, washed down with a pint of tea, is good enough hunting for any human. Old Johnnie comes from the docks in his dirty working clothes; but before ever he ventures to sit down to table he goes into the scullery, strips, and has what he calls a "slosh down," aft

s a happy hunting-ground for all those unhappy creatures who can find no congenial society in their own circles: I mean superior Socialists, Christian workers, Oxford and Cambridge settlement workers, and the immature intellectuals. There are literally dozens and dozens of churches and chapels on the Island, and dozens of halls and meeting-places where lectures are given. The former do not capture Johnni

a good time, they can go where they choose, do as they choose, and come home at what hour they choose without fearing the wrath of that curious figure whom they name The Pater. They have merely to explain that they are Socialists, and their set say, "Oh ... Socialists ... yes, of course." Socialism opens to them the golden gates of that Paradise, Bohemia. The f

ns so shrewd and penetrating that the young folk of Sidcup and Blackheath and Hampstead have found it a saving to their personal dignity to give him

Clarionettes, Syndicalists, Extremists, Arbitrators, Union leaders, Christian Care Committees-gaily they trip along and take charge of the hapless workers, until the poor fellows or girls are hustled this way and that, driven, coerced, commanded, and counter-commanded till, in desperation, they take refuge, one a

for us, as for the great ones of the town, the traffic was held up that we might pass. Among the crowd our appointed petitioners, with labelled collecting-boxes, worked with subdued zeal, and above the rumble of the 'buses and the honk-honk of motors and the frivolous tinkle of hansoms rose their harsh, insistent rattle. Now and again a gust of wind would send a dozen separate swirls of dust into our eyes. People stared at us much as one stares at an Edgware Road penny-museum show. We were not men. We were a procession of the Unemployed: An Event. We were a jolly lot. Most of us stared at the ground or the next man's back; only a few gazed defiantly around. None talked. Possibly a few were thinking, and if any of them were imaginative, that slow shuffle

e us no heart. Our escorts deigned us an occasional glance, but they had a soft job; we were not gnashing our teeth or singing the "Marseillaise" or "The Red Flag." People stared ... and stared. The long black snake of our procession threaded disconsolately into Knightsbridge. Hardly a word or a sign of interest escaped

here of Holborn. The rattle of our boxes' had grown apace, and we made small bets among ourselves as to what the total takings would be. I was thankful when the march or solemn walk was ended. For days afterwards my ears rang with the incessant clat-clat-clatter of those boxes, and for days afterwards I was haunted by those faces that stared at us, and then turned to stare at us, and then called other faces to stare at us. Nobody in t

us lot about is human nature; only he does not know that he knows it. His knowledge drops out of him, casually, in side remarks. At his post on the docks he observes not only white human nature but black and yellow and brown, and he knows how to deal with it all. He can calm a

, start right away at picking and stealing.... Funny lot, these jolly Lascars. If I was manager of a music-hall and I wanted a real good star turn-something fresh-I'd stand at my gate and bag the crew of a Dai Nippon, just as they come off, and then bung 'em on just as they are, and let 'em sing and dance just as they do when they've drawn their pay. That'd be a turn, old son. I bet that'd be a goer. Something your West End public ain't ever seen; something that'd knock spots off 'em and make their little fleshes creep. Of course it looks fiercer'n it really is. All that there chanting and chucking knives about is only, as you might say, ceremonial. But if they happen to come off at two o'clock of a foggy winter morning-my w

ries, or even stories with a point of any kind, but stories brimful of atmosphere, stories salt of the sea or scented with exotic bloom. They begin, perhaps, "Once, off Rangoon," or "I remember, a

these districts is no mere domestic function: it is a festival, an event. Johnnie washes and puts on his second-best suit, and then he and the missus depart from the Island, he bearing a large straw marketing

await the still riper hours when Bill shall have yielded up his wages. Old ladies of the locality are here in plenty, doubtfully fingering the pieces of meat which smother the slabs of the butchers' shops. Little Elsie is here, too, buying for a family of motherless brothers and sisters with the few shillings which Dad has doled out. Who knows so well as Little Elsie the exact spending value of twopence-halfpenny? Observe her as she lays in her Sunday gorge. Two penn'orth of "pieces" from the butcher's to begin with (for twopence you get a bagful of oddments of meat, trimmings from various joints, good nourishing bones, bits of suet, and, if the assistant thinks you have nice eyes,

m. He must, therefore, do his own shopping, and he does it about as badly as it can be done. His demeanour suggests a babe among wolves, innocence menaced by the wil

, and every moment its doors flap open, and fling their fire of joy on the already overcharged air. Between the stalls parad

on the ear becomes deadened by the striving rush of sound. Every stall and shop has its wi

like! Comerlong, comerlong, Ma! This is t

Buy 'em. Buy 'em. Sooner you buy 'em sooner I can get 'ome and 'ave my little bath. Come along, ladi

nas. Fourer penny. Pick

melons. Then a yard or so behind you an organ and cornet take up their stand and add "Tipperary" to the swelling symphony. But human ears can receive so much, and only so much,

in this line makes a very decent thing out of it. The usual remuneration is about eight or ten shillings for the night and whatever beer they want. And if you are shouting for nearly six hours in the heavy-laden air of Salmon Lane, you want plenty of beer and you earn all you get. They have a spontaneous wit about them that only the Cockney possesses. Try to take a rise out of one of them, and

counter, where he can easily reach the rows of joints. Around him gathers the cro

no use comin' 'ere. If yer wants a cut orf an animal what come from Orstralia or Noo Zealand, then it ain't no use comin' 'ere. Over the road's where they got them. They got joints over there what come from the Anty-Podeys, and they ain't paid their boat-passage yet. No, my gels, this what I got 'ere is Meat. None of your carvings orf

ice comes steadily down from six-and-a-half to six, five, four-and-a-half, and finally is knocked down at four. Often a prime-lo

cleared out before closing time, and only enough is held in reserve to supply that large army o

birds. In these houses you will find members of all-night trades that you have probably never thought of before. I met in a Blackwall Salvation Army Shelter a man who looks out from a high tower, somewhere down the Thames, all night. He starts at ten o'clock at night, and comes off at six, when he goes home to his lodging-house to bed. I have never yet been able to glean f

ld, they do say that the police still descend first on Duval Street in cases of local murder where the culprit has, as the newspapers say, made good his escape. I do not recommend it as a pleasure-jaunt for ladies or for the funny and fastidious folk of Bayswater. They would suffer terribly, I fear. The talk of the people would lash them like whips; the laughter would sear like hot irons. The noises bursting through the gratings from the underground cellars would be like a chastisement on the naked flesh, and shame and smarting and fear would grip them. The glances of the men would sting like scorpions. The glances of the women would bite like fangs. For these reasons, while I do not recommend it, I think a visit would do them good; it would purify their spotty little minds with pity and terror. For I think Duval Street stands easily first as one of the affrighting streets of London. There is not the least danger or disorder; but the tradition has given it an atmosphere of t

They have no hope, and, therefore, they have no fear. They are just down and out. All the ugly misery of all the ages is collected here in essence, and from it the atmosphere is cha

ever had in London. I was sitting in the common kitchen of one of the

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an old man. I looked at her with some interest because she was young, with copper-coloured hair that strayed about her face with all the profusion of an autumn sunset. She was the only youthful thing in the place, bar myself. I looked at her with rather excited interest because she was very drunk. She called the old man Dad. A few of the men greeted him. One or two nodded to the girl. "'Lo, Luba. Bin on the randy?" The women looked at her, not curiously, or with compassion or disgust, but cursorily. I fancied,

time in the

outh sagged open; her eye

see a Star wi' your pickcher in. And the old

snapped: "Oh, shut up, for Christ's sake, cancher? Give any one the fair pip, you do.

for her, and she seemed to see me for the first time. She looked at me, at once shiftily and sharply. Her eyes narrowed. Suspici

Oner the boys.

tion in her accent of East Prussia or Western Russia. Her face was permanently reddened by alcohol. The skin was coarse, almost scaly, and her whole pers

re she poured forth a string of suggestions so disgusting that I cannot even convey them by euphemism. Her mouth was a sewer. The air about

s. Why d'you go b

ly noticed me again, and, without another word, she dipped her hand to her bosom and pulled out a naked knife of the b

me, dear! See? Else y

etween us, we picked her up, replaced her, and tucked the knife into its sheath. Whereupon she at once got up, and said she was off. For some reason she went through an obscure ritual of solemnly pulling my ea

stair, and went babbling and yelling after Luba. Some one came and shoved a

had gone mad. I don't know now what it all meant. I only know that the girl was

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that you are a colleague of the Saviour. It springs from Pity, the most unclean of all human emotions. It is not akin to love; it is akin to contempt. To be pitied is to be in the last stages of spiritual degradatio

e as I slid like a phantom into that low-lit causeway that slinks from a crashing road to the dark wastes of waters beyond. At the far end a brutal bla

ongues. Under the pendant circles of gas-jets were ranged twelve long, narrow tables packed with children talking and eating with no sense of any speed-limit. On the one side were boys in cruelly ugly brown suits, and on the other side, little girls from seven to fifteen in frocks of some dark material with a thin froth of lace at neck and wrists and coarse, clean pinafores. Each table was attended by a matron, who served out the dry bread and hot milk to the prefects, who carried the

ld it, and massive columns of painted stone flung themselves aggressively here and there, and thought they were supporting a small gallery. Outside a full moon shone, but it filtered through the cheap, hal

ring of forms, the children stood stiffly up, faced round, and, as a sh

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red, and apart from his habiliments there was, in every line of his figure, that which suggested solidity, responsibility, and the substantial virtues. I have seen him at Committee meetings of various charitable enterprises; himself, duplicated again and again. One charitable worker is always exactly like the other, allowi

say with what pleasure this had been done. Many thousands of children now holding exalted positions in banks and the Civil Service could look to him as to their father, in the eighty or more years of the School's life, and he was proud to feel that his efforts were producing such Fine Healthy Young Citizens. The children knew-did they not?-that they had a Good Home, with loving guardians who would give them the most careful training suited to their position in life. They were clothed, maintained, and drilled, as concerned

Very Poor of the gutters, but the Respectable Poor who would not stoop to receive the aid doled out by the State. No; they were not Gutter Children, but, at the same time, the training they received was not such as to create any distaste among them for the humblest employments

te this, for they applauded with some

fostering of the Manly Qualities and the military drill-such a Fine Thing for the Lads; and he urged them to figure to themselves that, even if they did not rise to great heights, they might sti

t of irony.) He added that, in his opinion, kind he

of the City. There was no humbug here; impossible for a moment to doubt his sincerity. He had a childlike faith in his Great Work. He was, as he annually insisted, with painful poverty of epithet, engaged in Philanthropic Work, alleviating the Distresses of the Respectable Po

lothes, they were the poetry of the world: all that is young and fresh and lovely. Then I thought of them five years hence, their minds larded with a Sound Commercial Education, tramping the streets of the Cit

a smile of sincere pleasure. Then he called the children to attention while he read to them a prayer of St. Chrysosto

ent men and women who thrust themselves forward for that work are usually the last people who should rightly meddle with it. They either perform it from a sense of duty, or what they themselves call The Social Conscience (the most nauseous kind of benevolence), or they play with it because it is Something To Do. Always their work is discounted by personal vanity. I like the Fabians: they are funny without being vulgar. But these Social Servants an

their attentions upon them, and, if possible, lure them away to a service of song-Brief, Bright, and Brotherly. It was a bitter place in a narrow street. The street was gay and loud with humanity, only at its centre was a dark and forb

ng as squalid as the charity they serve. On a corner table was a battered urn and a number of earthenware cups, with many plates of thick, greasy bread-and-butter; just the right fare to offer a girl who has put away several benedictines and brandies. The room chilled me. Place, people, appointments, even the name-Midnight Crusade for the Reclamation of our Fallen Sisters-smacked of everything that is most ugly. Smugness and super-piety were in the place. The women-I mean, ladi

and I loathed all laws that were made without purpose. There were long printed lists of Rules in this place, framed, and hung in each room. You can never believe how many things a Fallen Sister may not do. Certain rules are, of course, essential; but the pedagogic mind, once started on law-making, can never stop; and it is usually the pedagogic type of mind, with the lust for correction, that goes in for Ch

ndignation at the hundred shamefulnesses which these charity-mongers heap upon defenceless girls who, in a weak moment, have sought their protection. If you know anything about the matter, you will know that these girls have in t

o its social work as represented in the excellent Shelters which have been opened in various districts. There is one in Whitechapel Road, which is the identical building where General Booth first started a small w

ffering them something for nothing; but you can get hold of them by tens of thousands by offering them something good at a low price. For a halfpenny the Salvation Army offers them tea, coffee, cocoa, or soup, with bread-and-butter, cake, or pudding. All this food

, lavatory, and washhouse. The washhouse is in very great demand on wet nights by those

s, such as half-past three or four o'clock. The Shelters are patronized by many "regulars"-flower-sellers, pedlars, Covent Garden or Billingsgate odd men, etc.-who lodge with them by the week, sometimes by the year. Lights are officially out at half-past nine, but of course the orderly is on dut

to any hungry, homeless wanderer they give a ticket with directions to the Shelter. These Saturday nig

owards helping him is to awaken in him the latent sense of responsibility. The quickest way is to

e New Age on social subjects by the door for a night. I think they would learn a lot of things they never knew before. Often, at two or three o'clock in the morning,

he fine spirit which I have found prevailing there. It is a spirit of camaraderie. In other charitable institutions you will find timidity, the cowed manner, sometimes symptoms of actual fear. But never at the Salvation Ar

s, and their reward, is the sturdy, respectable artisan who comes along a few months l

ter, you find a little warm corner called Shepherd's Bush. You find also Notting Dale, where the bad burglars live, but we w

n, finding time hang heavy on her hands, or having some private grief which she desired to forget in bustle and activity, started a movement for giving children happy evenings. I have not been to one of the centres, and I am sure I should not like to go. I dis

e moment; just as the dances performed by little gutter-arabs and factory-girls around street organs are an abandonment to the mood of to-day's moment. But the elderly spinsters have found that what was vulgar three hundred years ago is artistic to-day; or if it isn't they will make it so. Why on earth a child should have to dance round a maypole just because children danced round a may

ys in attendance to play whatever might be required by the children. If they wanted "The Cubanola Glide," or "Down in Jungle-Town," or "In the Shadows," they got it, or anything else they might choose.

as no rush. When the kiddies wanted a cake they went up and asked for it; but for the most part they were immersed in that subdued, serious excitement which means that games are really being enjoyed. All of the attendants were girls of 12 or 13, of that sweet age between childhood and flapperhood, when girls are at their loveliest, with short frocks that dance at every delicate step, and with unconcealed glories of hair golden or dusky; all morning light and melody and fearlessness, not yet realizing that they are women. Many of them, shabby and underfed as they were,

lay-room went to the piano, crashed a few chords, and instantly every head, golden or brown or dark, was lifted to us. My hostess s

a song?" cri

r ...

we have

every popular song of the last ten years. However, we compromised, for a start, on "Jungle-Town," and, thoug

I had no rest for at least half an hour. We managed to get them to write their favourites on slips of paper, and I took them in rotation, the symphony being in every case interrupted by long-drawn groans fr

her, each telling her own pet story. Their skill in this direction was a thing to marvel at. The audience was a joy, with half-raised heads, wide eyes, open mouths,

hriek of horror? It nearly pierced the drums of the ear. Then they all huddled together in a big bunch, each embracing the other, and begged me to tell it again; so, while they clung tightly together for safety, I told it aga

m messages to me, to chant bits of the choruses we had sung, to dance with loud, defiant feet on the hollow floor, and one little girl gave me a

y of the cakes and coffee-cups, and, half an hour late

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nth century and as lonely as a good man in Chicago. Cross the Square, cut through Greek Street or Dean St

et, and, instinctively, he swaggers; he is abroad; he is a dog. He comes up from Surbiton or Norwood or Golder's Green, and he dines cheaply at one of the hund

r the last few years, a growing disregard, among all classes, for the heavier conventionalities; but this determined Bohemianism is a mistake. The Englishman can no more be trifling and light-hearted in the Gallic manner than a Polar bear can dance the maxixe brésilienne in the jungle. If you have ever visited those melancholy places, the night clubs and cabarets, which had a boom a year or two ago, you will appreciate the immense effort that devilry demands from him. Those places were the last word in dullness. I have been at Hampstead tea-parties which gave you a little more of the joy of living. I have watched the nuts and

management knew that they could do as they liked with the tariff. The boys wouldn't go to night-clubs if they were not spendthrifts. Res

ep out of Soho cafés. They only come in quest of a Bohemianism which isn't there. They can get much better food at home, or they can afford to get a really good mea

ose food was underdone, "thes

l spoil Soho, and he will lose his own d

e to repletion for a shilling. There was a little place in Wardour Street, the Franco-Suisse-it is still there-whose shilling table d'h?te was a marvel: And I always had my bob's worth, I can assure you

ory organs of Nihilism may be read, and where heavy-bearded men-Anarchists, you hope, but piano-builders, you fear-would sit for three hours over their dinner Talking, Talking, Talking. Th

ow" on one or two occasions and talked with the chefs. There are about a dozen cafés now which, for the Homeric shilling, giv

Dieudonné's. It is rhomboidal in shape, with many angles, as though perspective had suddenly gone mad. Each table is set with a spoon, a knife, a fork, a serviette, a basket of French br

ed with potato and garnished with a yard of bread, makes an excellent lining for a hollow stomach. This is followed by omelette or fish. Of the two evils you choose the less, and cry "Omelette!" When the omelette is thrown in front of you it at once makes its presence felt. It recalls Bill Nye's beautiful story about an introspecti

first guest. The moment he is seated the waitress screams, "Un potage-un!" The large Monsieur, the proprietor, at the counter, bellows down the tube, "Un Potage-Un!" Away in subterranean regions an ear catches it, and a distant voice chants "Potage!" And then from the far reaches of the kitchen you hear a smothered

ritone, while the cook has mostly a falsetto, with a really exciting register. This grand opera idea affects, in turn, the waitresses. To the first-comers they are casual and chatty; but towards seven o'clock there is a subtle change. They become tragic. They are as the children of destiny. There is that Italianate sob in the voice as they demand Poulet roti au salade! as who should cry, "Ah, fors è lui!" or "In questa tomba...." They do not serve you. They assault you with soup or omelette. They make a grand pass above your head, and fling knife and fork before you. They collide with themselves and each other, and there are recriminations and reprisals. They quarrel, apparently, to the

get an excellent cup of black coffee, and listen to the electric piano, splurging its cheap gaiety on the night, or to the newsmen yelling "Journaux de Paris!" or "Dernière Heure!" There are

, The Florence, and Kettner's. Here you do not escape for a shilling, or anything like it. Maxim's does an excellent half-crown dinner, and so, too, does The Rendezvous. The others

not exciting for them to dine on five courses instead of on roast mutton and vegetables and milk-pudding. It is a common-place. For that is the curious thing about the foreigner: wherever he wanders he takes his country with him. Englishmen get into queer corners of the world, and adapt themselves to local customs, fit themselves into local landscapes. Not so the Continental. Let him go to London, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and he will take France, or Germany, or Italy, or Russia with him. Here in this little square mile of London is France: French shops, French comestibles, French papers, French books, French pictures, French hardware, and French restaurants and manners. In old Compton Street he is as mu

orchestra, where his fancy would have full freedom. When he says Music, he means Massenet, Gounod, Puccini, Mascagni, Leoncavallo. He plays Wagner with but little interest. He plays Viennese opera with a positive snort. Ragtime-well, I do not think he is conscious of playing it; he fiddles mechanically for that. But when, by a rar

that is being hummed in Paris. He is picturesque, in his own way-shabby, but artistically shabby. At one o'clock you will see him in "The Dieppe," taking their shilling t

twenty years. In each case there is a girl.... Or there was a girl twenty years ago. She is waiting for them-one in Paris, and the other in Wicklow. At least, so they believe. Sometimes, thoug

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least Italian about it. There isn't a shop or a home in the whole length of it. It is just a segment of the City, E.C.-a straggling street of flat-faced warehouses and printing-works; h

ng, and alive. Here is the Italian Church. Here is St. John's Gate, where Goldsmith and Isaac Walton and a host of other delightful fellows lived. This gatehouse is now all that remains of the Priory of St. John of Jerusalem around which the litt

chestnuts, roast potatoes, chopped wood, and salt. In unsuspected warehouses here you may purchase wonderful toys that you never saw in any other shops. You may buy a barrow and a stove and a complete apparatus for roasting potatoes and chestnuts, including a natty little poker for raking out the cinders. You may buy a gaudily decorated barrow and freezing-plant for the manufacture and sale of ice-cream. Or-and as soon as I have the money this is what I am going to buy in Clerkenwell-you may buy a real street organ-a hundred of them, if you wish. While the main road and the side streets on the south are given up to the watch a

unty Council, are forbidden on Sundays; nevertheless, Sunday being the only day when millions of people have any chance of recreation, many organs go out. Whither do they go? East, my dears. There, in any ramshackle hall, or fit-up arch-way, or disused stables, the boys and girls, out for fun, may dance the golden hours away througho

s in squares and public streets forbidding street organs to practise there. Let house-agents take note that I and a dozen of my friends will never, never, never take a house in any area where organs or street vendors or street cries are prohibited. They are part of the very soul of London. Kill them, and you kill something lovely and desirable, without which the world will be the sadder. That any one should have the impudence to ask for money for the carrying out of such a project is merely another proof of the disease of the age. They might as

d fingers that dance with gemmy rings. A new-comer arrives, unhooking from his shoulders the wooden tray which holds the group of statuettes that he has been hawking round Streatham and Norwood. He salutes them in mellifluous tones, and sits down. He orders nothing; but a heaped-up dish of macaroni is put before him, and he attacks it with fork and finger. There are few women to be seen, but those few are gaudily arrayed in coloured handkerchiefs, their mournful eyes and purring voices touching the stern night to beauty. Of ch

hings. Occasionally there is an affray with knives, but it is always among themselves: a sort of vendetta; and nobody interferes so long as they refrain from bloodshed or from annoying peaceable people. The services in the Italian Church are very picturesque, and so, too, are their ceremonies at Christmas-time; while the procession of the children at First Communion is a

o not visit an impoverished Italian who lives in one room in Clerkenwell, in the summer; unless, of course, you are a sanitary inspector. He is an entertaining old fellow, and speaks a delicio

him-something he would like to forget. It happened about ten years ago, and I witnessed it. Ten y

lendid sons of Italy to discuss, to grin, to fight, and to invent new oaths. On this corner, moreover, they pivot in times of danger, and, once they can make the mazy circle of which it is the edge, s

h the commencement of a rag-tag dance, the Point was whipped to frivolous life. The loungers grunted, and moved up to see. Clusters of children, little angels with dark eyes and language sufficiently seasoned to melt a glacier, slipped

d, until the public-house lamp was turned on and a cornet joined the organ. In the warm yellow light, the revels broke bounds, and, to the hysterical appeal of "Hiaw

iquant possibilities of the dance. It babbled its merriment at seeing little fa

g fashion to their authors, who repolished them and shot them forth again. Heads bobbed back, forth, an

h, the crowd took open order, and stared at the narrow alley of Back Hill. Blankets of smoke moved from its mouth, pushing their suffocating way up the street. Twenty people hurt themselves in shriek

ling themselves through the ground-floor window of the doomed house. Thick, languid flames blocked the doorway, swaying idly, ready to fasten their fangs in anything that appr

fear and admiration surged up, as a spout of flame darted through the roof, and quivered proudly to the sky. Luigi threw back

the top. A sick hush fell. Away in the upper regions a voice was wailing. The women turned pale, and one or two edged away. The men whistled silently, and looked serious. They had th

he said o

ngs. "Wet blanket, there. Quick! Here's

d. They were English. "'Ray! 'Ray! 'Ray! Good iron! 'E's go

uage which cannot be set down; the proprietor of the Ristorante del Commercio also grew profane. The children stared and giggled, wonderingly.

about him, vaulted the low sill, and then the wild light danced evilly about him. Outside, we watched and waited. A lurid silence settled, and the far cries of one of the late dancers who was receiving correction for dancing indecent da

here and

t do w

und, reprovingly. "Easy

aff

hep's riski

e no difference. Be 'ap

chep's risk

ide me

t wante

his life,

, head first, and set on his feet. The fire-engine raved and jangled in Clerkenwell Road, but there was no way for it. The firemen tried to clear the crowd, but it would not be denied its sight of the hero. It struggled in to a

d at last they cleared a passage for their plant. Then, as they cleared, the wispy man danced again, and seemed likely to die. He sprang

again from the house, winding off in

at yeh brought down. Lo

t to the front rank. The man's shaking finger pointed at Luigi's feet. "D'you know w

heets, blanket, and carpet. A scream came from the house. Every window fi

orgiven Luigi. Luigi ha

HER'S

XT

DON

ride on ev

hundred to

throb and wo

n pine in s

g birds the

tle tale

g over murk

e blows by

traffic-th

o'er with sh

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with fouler s

t evening, d

a sickly

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HER'S

XT

live. You feel that they are ready to do you damage, with or without reason. Here are antagonism and desire, stripped for battle. Little children, of three years old, have the spir

mes of fustian drama. Sadler's Wells is now a picture palace, and the Surrey is a two-house Variety show. The old Brit. held out longest, but even that is going now. Its annual pantomime was one of the events of the London Season for the good Bohemian. Then all the Gallery First Nighters boys and girls would go down on the last night, which was Benefit Night for Mrs. Sara Lane, the proprietress. Not only were bouquets handed up, but the audience showered upon her tributes in more homely and substantial form. Here was a fine outlet for the originality of the crowd, and among the things that were passed over the

and it is yours. It will not be offered you anywhere in London, but if you do ask for it, Hoxton is the one place where there is "no waiting," as the barbers sa

nos. It was a picturesque night. A clammy fog blanketed the whole world. It swirled and swirled. Hoxton Street was a glorious dream, as enticingly indefinite as an opium-sleep. Simple Simon had an appointment here. The boys were to be out that night. Jimmie Flanagan, their l

eard something. Something that brought him to a sharp halt. Before he saw or heard anything more definite, he felt that he was surrounded. To place direction of sound was impossible. He heard, from every side, lik

ried a spirited voice as a spir

usiasm of bashing rendered identification by voice impracticable. Indeed, if any heard it, it had no effect; for, so they had some one to bash, they would bash. It didn'

with fists, but good for anything in a scrum. When, however, as at present, eleven happy lads were seeking each a grip on his person, it became difficult to defeat their purpose. But at last, as he was about to make a final wrench at the expense of his coat, the metal tips on his boots undid him. He dug his heels backward to get a purchase, he struck the slippery

yer bel

d not move. They spat all about him. He swore crudely but sincerely, and if oaths have any potency his tormentors should have withered where they stood. Two and three at a time they came, for there were eleven of them-Flanagan having di

didn't want to do the dirty on them, he didn't want to take extreme steps, but dammit, this was the frozen limit. He knew th

e blanke

t. Twisting his head aside, he got something between his teeth, and through the fetid fog went the

y direction. He heard the sound of scuttering feet as his enemies withdrew. He heard the sound of scuttering feet as they closed in again. But he was not waiting fo

m, and took notes. The lurking passages began to brighten with life, and where, a moment ago, was sick

ured. The women were voluble. The men spat. A forest of faces grew up about Simple Simon. A hurr

f yer. Stop yer shoving. Ain't nobody bin aski

t popular. Th

ne else have a see, Fatty! Other pe

back! Why canc

wanted a smash over the

t on. There were pauses, while the crowd wait

thing. Alwis the way, though-them polic

a sudden undeniable movement. Its centre flattened, wavered, broke, and the impelling force

felt a jerk on his arm that nearly pulled it from its socke

volume, and through the distorting fog came antic shapes of blue, helmeted. The lights of

p. Some one cried, "Hot stuff, boys-

I find the blank blank blank wha

oys! Trunche

y a struggling mass for whom there was no way. There was in the air an imminence of incident, acid and barbed. The girl screamed. She implored. Then, with a frantic movement, her free ha

tant fool pulle

, if I cop that young 'un wi' the

e blanker what trod

ad a rummy 'a

f harness and bells; the clop-clop of hoofs, rising to a clatter. There was the scamper of a thousand feet as the engine swung into the street

chway, whichwa

"There ain't no pleading fire! This

the engine. "Don't no

" Then a constable, with fierce face, battered helmet, and torn tunic, and with

re. King's na

ost tragic solemnity. Agonized shapes rushed hither and thither. Women

riously, did the combat cease. Constables found themselves, in a moment, wrest

e blankety blank blanker what trod on

wn passages, round corners, and through alleyways, finally to be flung into the misty radia

d burned. He desired nothing but the cold sheets of his bed and a bottle of embrocation. He swore at the fog, with a fine relish for the colour of sounds. He swore at things that were in no

int and sweet and far away, as the memor

'ad a rummy

-STREA

CKW

NDIA D

te man-brown

Orient loafi

, Jap, Malay

ndon from the g

te man-brown

d Poplar and C

-throats and many-

usty things for L

light-rose and

t long ago in Sin

pices, of inc

onite, the bete

aight lies lily

dies and padde

d princes and velvet

arp knife and

imehouse, by riggings,

d perfume, and du

mehouse there's the bl

Aladdins, and bo

-STREA

CKW

The hour was late, but life ran high in those parts. Against the savage purple of the n

ank, vanishing into the sly glooms of the huge port-holes. Chains rang and rattled. Lascars of every kind flashed here and there: Arabs, Chinkies, Japs, Malays, East Indians. Talk in every lingo was on the air. Some hurried from the dock, making for a lodging-house or for The Asiatics' Home. Some hurried into the dock, with that impassive swiftness which gives no impr

undles of hilarity, lingering near the scenes of their recent splendours. A thousand sounds, now of revelry, now of complaint, disturbed the brooding calm of the sky. A thousand impromptu concerts were given, and a thousand insults grew precociously to blows. A thousand old friendships were shattered, and a thousand new vows of eternal comradeship and blood-brotherhood were

uble.... One heard a querulous voice: "I said Time, din' I?" And another: "Well, let 'im prove it. Let 'im 'it me, that's all!" From the tug you could see the dust of the street rise in answering clouds to the assaults of many feet. Then, quite suddenly, the wide

d now a large voice commanded the silence of the night, and cried upon London: "What I s

thinkingly, up the thunderous length of Rotherhithe Tunnel and down East India Dock Road and had fallen in with Chuck Lightfoot and som

there was a short silence. It was bro

'ome!" cr

bad-wordily late ought to be bad-wordily bad-worded. The ne

hin protruded, he advanced on his opponent with the slow, insidious movement of the street fighter. The other man dashed in, beat him off with the left, and followed it with three to the face with the right. He pressed his man. He ducked a lumbering right swing, and sent a one-two to the body. The lady had lashed herself to a whir

uggled with both. The bulky form of the lady was swung back and forth by his cunning arm; and one heard the crowd stand by, press in, rush back, in rhythm to the move

ws, and voices: "Why doncher separate 'em? Why cancher shut that plurry row?" With the new light one saw the crowd against a

, twisted, jerked, panted, now staggered a few paces, now stood still, straining silently. Now they were down, now up. Another woman's voice wai

om my side. I looked at him. "Fed up on this, I am. Wait here." He vaulted from the deck of the

s head being banged on the pavement. Frank's wife screamed: "Se

"I'll be sick. Stop '

rd "dead-dead-dead" flitted from mouth to mouth. Some turned away. Others approached as

r. He was a lot of other things besides. He was the straightest boy I have ever met in that line. He had every

d them, and waited for assaults. We climbed up and stood with him, but nothing happened. Tragedy is so often imminent in this region, and so

blue helmets and

fair w

RT N

EL

DON M

I, in my de

ded heart in

fled myself

er pallid, pa

lunk through p

the tumult

the hectic

m the viole

of you, the w

h, little h

sed a beauty

yrinthine m

at me from c

om Fleet Stree

song the b

a fresh enc

you little

your delicat

you now can

auty has my h

; and only

or pain of

n the tumul

bler than

RT N

EL

the soul of Chelsea, you must view it through the pearl-grey haze of just such a temperament as that of the suave Amer

One visions it as a graceful spinster-watered silks, ruffles, corkscrew curls, you know, with lily fingers caressing the keys of her harpsichord. Pass down Cheyne Walk at whatever time you will, and you are never alone; little companies of delicate fancy join you at every ste

emember the day

is, by lane

ining by the river, beautifying that which beautifies her. All about Chelsea the colours seem to chime with their backgrounds as though they loved them; and when the lamps are li

he studio of the artist that Chelsea is known to-day. Step this way, if you please. We draw the curtain. Vie de Bohème! But not, mark you, the vie de Bohème of Murger. True, Rodolphe and Marcel are here, and Mimi and Musette. But the studio is not the squalid garret that we know. We have changed all that. Rodolphe writes light verse for the "largest circulations." Mimi draws fashion plates, and dresses like the Duchess of the novelettes. Mar

es. The Duchess of Monmouth had a residence here, with the delightful John Gay as secretary. Can one imagine a modern Duchess with a modern poet as secretary? The same house was later occupied

ns Holbein, Thomas Shadwell (forgotten laureate), Carlyle, Whistler, Edwin Abbey, George Meredith, Swinburne, Holman Hunt, William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Oscar and Willie Wilde, Count d'Orsay, George Eliot, and a host of lesser but equally adorable personalities whose names must come "among those present." It should show us its famous places. It should afford us peep-holes into the studios of famous artists-Augustus John's studio is a

th a gracious pen, a delicate, entirely human mind. There i

Howells, will yo

lsea Palace, or have just one more at the "Bells," when I ran into the R.B.A. He is a large man, and running into him rather upsets one

cted the walls of the saloon, which are decorated with nothing but originals, many of them bearing resounding names. In the billiard-room he introduced me to Augustus John and three other famous men who might not like

h oak panelling and electric light, which he rented from a travelling pal for the ridiculous sum of three shillings a week. I

me caricatures of the famous people with whom he had bohèmed. Then, at about ten o'clock, he said it was rathe

e a model-which is a distinct boon. The old way was for the model to call on the artist, the result being that the unfortunate man was pestered with dozens of girls for whom he had no use, while the one model he really wanted never appeared. The club combines the advantages of club, employment bureau, and hotel. There is no

sque, for the model has, of course, the knack of the effective pose, not only professionally but socially. It is a beautiful club, and it is one more answer

At least, I think he was an anarchist, because he was just like the pictures. I have met only eighteen real anarchists, two of

they?" aske

the anarchist. "Taak heed ye dinna st

ing firelight. In the dusk it looked like Balestieri's picture of "Beethoven" which adorns every suburban drawing-room with a leaning towards the Artistic. People were sprawled here and there, but to distinguish them was impossible. I fell over some one's foot, and

r ye can, laddie. An

n. Her raven hair was hanging down her back. Her arms were bare. She smoked a Virginia cigarette vindictively.

y presence. She looked at me; she looked at the drink. She said to the ana

relessly dressed but distinguished young men. Some of these raised their voices, and one heard the self-proud accent of Oxford. The music stopped, and the

a fellah-fellah who had an aunt, you know? And fellah's aunt was most frightfully keen on dogs and all that, you know.... After three minutes of it I

s aunt had been disposed of, some one else went to the piano and played Debussy, and the anarchist brought me another drink; and the whole thing was such painfully manufactured Bohemianism that it made me a little tired. The room, the appointments, the absence of light, Debussy, the drinks, and the girls' costumes were so obvio

oulders. She just glanced at me, and then back at the window. I looked up, too. The piano was at it again, and some one was singing. The thread of light just showed you the crimson curtains and the heavy oak beams. The pianist broke into Delilah's song, and the voice swam after it. It was a clear, warm voice, typical of the fift

ke a dew-delighted bird, it fled up and hovered on a timid note of appeal. The girl giggled. As the voice died on a long, soft note

bad, eh?"

wered. "Not

what it feels like to sing like that, eh? Makes me ... sort

"No EARTHLY, dear old girl. You'll never sing

SIAN

ELDS AND

EY CA

ading lip, the

er and

ef that none w

d all

ded, beau

and last w

she

our delirious

nds he

noisy sile

hear h

med boughs

breast

any

awn shall drink

et h

auty! She has

omes home

SIAN

ELDS AND

s to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora, and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another t

pirit. Words may come, but they are words, hard and stiff

re girls in this quarter who will smite the heart out of you, whose beauty will cry itself into your very blood. White's Row and the fastnesses of Stepney do not produce many choice blooms; there are no lilies in these gardens of weeds. The girls are not romantic to regard or to talk with. They are not even clean. The secrets of their toilet are not known to me, but I doubt if soap and water ever appe

d mix with them if you nurse that illusion. Wistfulness and romance are in the atmosphere, but the pe

, human hair, and the slaughter-house. Mingle these with sheep-skins warm from the carcass, and the decaying refuse in every gutter, and you will understand why I always smoke cigars in Spitalfields. In these cafés I have met on occasion those seriocomics, Louise Michel, Emma Goldmann, and Chicago May. Beilis, the hero of the blood-ritual trial, was here some months ago; and Enrico Malatesta has visited, too. Among the men-f

t Thames Police Court, in 1898, and it was his proud boast that he had kept it ever since. He was then seventy-nine. His father died of drink at thirty-seven, and Dean Farrar once told Spring that his case was excusable, since it was hereditary. But, although Spring went to prison at the age of thirteen for drunkenness, and has "been in" thirty-nine times, he didn't die at thirty-seven. I wonder what the moral is? His happiest days, he assured me, were spent in old Clerkenwell Pr

e said, "giv

f a crown. She obeyed him; and when he returned, and looked under the floor where he stor

could only do that successfully by some very public step. So he went

, I write better poetry. Every time I feel I want a drin

he friendship and interest of all. He read me about a do

poet would

yalty-prince, k

e insignifica

ed over, mayh

yself addres

verses from my

me very much for

out letters from King Edward, Q

ean people like the late lamented Craig, the poet of the Oval Cricket Ground, Captain Hunnable, of Ilford, Mr. Algernon Ashton, Spiv. Bags

nt down a detachment of the Irish Guards. There was a real Cabinet Minister in it, too; he came down in his motor-car to superintend man?uvres and compliment gallant officers on their strategy. And yet, in that great contest of four men versus the Rest of England, it was the Rest of England that went down; for Fort Chabrol stood its ground and quietly laughed. They were never beaten, they never surrendered. When they had had enough, they just burnt the house over themselves, and ... h

one, and with a sex interest. Of course every newspaper and agency developed a virtuous anxiety to track the culprit, and all resources were directed to that end. Journalism is perhaps the only profession in which so fine a public spirit may be found.

ows. Through the streaming streets my hansom leaped; and as I looked from the window, and noted th

every corner with huge baskets of black bread and sweet cakes, were departing beneath umbrellas. The stalls of Osborn Street, usually dressed with foreign-looking confectionery, were also retiring. Indeed, everybody seemed to be slinking away, and as I sipped my vodka, and f

roofs you may see the sharp points of a Council School. Such games as happen are played but listlessly, and each little face is smirched. The gaunt warehouses hardly support their lopping heads, and the low, beetling, gabled houses of the alleys seem for ever to brood on nights of bitter adventure. Fit objects for contempt by day they

e, a gang of lads and girls stepped forward. One of the girls looked at me. Her face had th

ng little gu

smiled and said that w

iggle

e other four marched ahead, crying, "Come on!" And, surprised, yet knowing of no good reas

t is always ready to toss you little encou

atmosphere in these places is a little more cheerful than that of the cafés-if you can imagine a Russian ever rising to cheerfulness. Most of the girls lodge over the milliners' shops, and thither their friends resort. Every establishment here has a piano, for music, with them, is a sombre passion rather than a diversi

ung a soft, caressing radiance on its shabby home, and on its mistress, and on the other girls and boys. The boys were tough youngsters of the district, evidently very much at home, sm

ea. "Help 'selves, boys!" We did so, and, watching the others, I discovered that it was the

t-pourri of a carpet, and certain mysteries of feminine toilet. A rickety three-legged table stood by the window, and Katarina's ro

s ... something indefinable. I had visited similar places in Stepney before, but then I had not had a couple of vodkas, and I had not been taken in tow by an unknown gang. They play and play, while tea and cigarettes, and sometimes vodka or whisky go round; and as the room gets warmer, so does on

l at the piano, playing, as no one would have dreamed she could play, the finer intensities of Wieniawski and Moussorgsky, shook all sense of respons

se to nocturne, from sonata to prelude, her fancy ran. With crashing chords she dropped from "L'Automne Bacchanale" to the Nocturne in E flat; scarcely murmured of that, then tripped elvishly into Moszkowsky's Waltz, and from that she dropped to a song of T

ence; and some one entered the room and shut the door. One of the boys asked casually, "What's up?" His question was not answered, but the girl who had gone to the door snapped something in a s

in't a ruddy R

in a hoarse whisper: "'Er

?" asked

I sa

, b

ring of slippered feet. More words were exchanged. Then Sanya

s al

I wondered ... well, I just wondered. My thoughts got into a tangle, sank, and swam, and sank again. Then there was a sudden struggle and spurt from the lamp, and it went black out.

o voices. I slipped swiftly down the five flights, met nobody. I stood in the slobbered vestibule. From

ng. I am normally nervous, and there are three or four things that have the power to terrify me. But I am not, I think, afraid. At that moment, however, I wa

ced into Brick Lane, and out into

DINAVI

AD

SHA

ad, glad s

a-ran-ta

ould find a

ta-ran-

wickedne

ll Docks to

things that

is juice te

ly he'd d

much that I

oody good

h

good co

reatures-black

a-ran-ta

word he'd sp

ta-ran-

at we were

d laughed and

a cruel th

l Docks or

down he'd

is juice te

ly he'd d

much that I

oody good

h

good co

DINAVI

AD

... bits of strange song ... and then an open door and a sharp slab of mellow light. With a sense of high adventure we peeped in. Some one beckoned. We entered. The room was sawdusted as to the floor, littered with wooden tables and benches. All was sloppy with ri

and fingers flew, as though repelling multitudinous attacks. His face curled, and crinkled, and slipped, and jumped suddenly straight again, and then vanished in infinite corrugations. He seemed to be in the agony of a lost soul which seeks to cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff.... Arms and lip

d trying to ask me to have a cake. When I knew that I had been in the lair of the

escribed, mostly for the Scandinavians, though there are many shops catering for them still farther East. Sometimes you may hear a long, savage roar

is narrow space seizes you, and you feel that you must "Luff her!" or "Starrrrrb'd yer Helllllllm!" or "Ease 'er!" or "Man the tops'l!" or whatever they do and say on Scandinavian boats. You may see these boats in the Pool any night; timber boats they are, for the most part; squat, low-lying affairs, but curiously picturesque when massed close with other shipping, steam or sail. One of our London songsters has recorded that "there's always something doing by the seaside"; and that is equally true of down Thames-side. London River is a

ields. It is not pleasant, like the darkness of Chinatown. It is not matey, like the darkness of Hackney Marshes. It is ... nasty. At every ten paces there is the black mouth of an alley with just space enough for the passage of one person. Within the jaws of each alley is a lounging figure-man, woman, or child, Londoner or foreigner, you cannot discern. But it is there, silent, watchful, expectant. And if you choose to venture, you may examine more

in every doorway and at those corners which are illuminated, clusters of little girls, all of the same age, all of the same height, their glances knowing so much more than their little fresh lips imply. They seem all to be born at that age, and they never grow up. For every boy and woman that you pass in that dusty mile y

homes of the worst vices of the seagoing foreigner. It is the haunt of the dissolute and the indigent; not only of the normal brute, but also of the satyr. You kn

ed hair, and an ashen cheek. Any expert will prove that. I can never believe that any one would be lured to destruction by those birds of paradise whom one has met in the stuffy, over-gilded, and, happily, abortive night-clubs and cabarets. If a consensus were taken, I think it would be found that wickedness g

-box gaiety, but rather in the dolours and silences of the East. Long before I had adventured there, its very street names-Whitechapel High Street,

excellent fellow, and spent the whole evening with him. He talked Swedish, I talked English; and we understood one another perfectly. We did a "pub-crawl" in Commercial Road and East India Dock Road, and finished up at the Queen's Theatre in Poplar High Street. A jolly evening ended, much too early for me, at one o'clock in the morning, when he insisted on entering a lodgin

and insisted: "I

right quarters. But he thrust me aside: "I ban gude Swede!" he said, resentfully this time, wit

gude

ouse entrance. I looked back at the corner. He turned, to wave his hand

gude

hear bursts of filthy laughter from this or that low-lit window; but it is not spontaneous. You only laugh like that when you have nine or ten inside you. The spirit of the pla

ep in this region. They bathe not, neither do they swim; and Cerberus in all his hideousness was not arrayed like some of these. If

minds. Seamen haven't. They have only fearful and gloomy habits. Probably, when the evening has lit the world to slow beauty, and a quart or

nd songs of birds and bud-spangled trees are all very well, if you have the narrow mind of the Nature-lover; but how much sweeter are the things of the hands, the darling friendliness of the streets! The maidenly month of April makes little difference to us here. We know, by the calendar and by our physical selves, that it is the season of song and quickening blood. Beyond London, amid the spray of orchard foam, bird and bee may make their carnival; lusty spring may rustle in the hedgerows; golden-tasselled summer may move along the shadow-fretted meadows; but

ugh anywhere at night; it is twenty times worse in this district, when the voice is a child's. I want, very badly, to tell the story I refrained from telling. I want to tell it because it is true, because it ought to be told, and because it might shake you into some kind of action, which newspaper reports would never do. Yet I know perfectly well that if I did tell

y to Children. This Society keeps five hundred workers incessantly busy, day and night, preventing cruelty to little English children. Go in, and listen to some of the stories that the inspectors can tell you. They can tell you of appalling sufferings inflicted on children, of bruised bodies and lacerated limbs and poisoned minds, not only in the submerged quarters but in comfortable houses by English people of education and position. Buy a few numbers of the Society's official organ, The Child's Guardian, and read of the hundreds of cases which they attack every month, and of the bestialities to which children are submitted, and you will then see that light as the beacon-light of England's disgrace. I once showed it to a Spanish friend, and he looked at me with polite disgust. "And your countrymen, my friend," he said,

erstand why some men, fathers of little girls, suddenly have money for beer when a foreign boat is berthed. You will appreciate what it is that twists its atmosphere into something anomalous. You remember the gracious or j

NDAY

YW

Y TEA

ise of winkle

inkles rattle

ad, whose hundr

er in after-

t Peace!" wail

e barmy!" snar

y place, this

burbs; not a p

aughter, for al

rposed toil o

e!-the accordion

art to April-s

NDAY

YW

ly, as befits one with responsibilities, what time mother at home is preparing the feast. The children, poor darlings, do not skip or jump or laugh. They walk sedately, in their starchy attire, holding father's arm and trying to realize that it really is Sunday, and therefore very sinful to fling oneself about. The people taking their appetite stroll before midday dinner look all so sleek and complacent that one would like to borrow money from them. The 'buses rumble with a cheeriness that belongs not to weekdays; their handrails gleam with a new brightness, and the High Street, with shops shuttered and barred, bears not the faintest resemblance to the High Street you know so well, even as policemen, with helmets and

ged man get drunk on Sunday? There is nothing else to do. Why does the horse-faced lady, with nice clothes, go to church on Sunday? There is nothing else to do. Why do people overeat themselves on Sunday? There is nothing else to do. Why do parents make themselves stiff and uncomfortable i

an take London with you into some lonely spot and there re-create it. Jump on the Chingford 'bus any Sunday evening, and let yourself go with the crowd. Out in the glades of the Forest things are happening. The dappled shades of the wood flash with colour and noise, and, if you are human, you will soon have succumbed to the contagion of the carnival. Voices of all varieties, shrill, hoarse, and rich, rise in the heavy August air, outside "The Jolly Wagoners," and the jingle of glasses and the popping of corks compete with the professional hilarity of the vendors of novelties. Here and there bunches of confetti shoot up, whirling and glimmering; elsewhere a group

ields shimmering under the sweet, hot sky of twilight, and the distant uplands telling of calm and deep peace in other places. Truly a court of love, and truly loved by those who, for an hour or so, dwell in it. Tread lightly, you that pass. It may move you to mirth, but there is nothing mirthful here; only the eternal sorrow and the eternal joy. Perchance you do not make love in t

l only of stragglers from the lost parts, who have wandered here unknowingly. The waiters are off their form. They know their Sunday

ay those hackneyed bits of Wagner and Tchaikowsky and Rossini of which all the world must be everlastingly sick, and the singers sing those tiresome songs which so satisfy the musical taste of Bayswater-baritone songs about the Army and the Navy and their rollicking ways, and about old English country life; tenor songs about Grey Eyes and Roses and Waiting and Parting and Comin

nd crowds of Jew couples and other wanderers from the far regions. They look lost. They look like a Cup Tie crowd from the North. They don't walk; they drift. They look helpless; they have an air expressive of: "Well, what the devil shall we do now?" I have a grim notion that members of the London County Council, observing them

ot too stout) and go home to their cigars and liqueurs and whateve

eing that the sun is always shining in the Strand. So it is. Dull as the day may be elsewhere, there is always light of some kind in the Strand. It is the gayest, most Londonish street in London. It is jammed with Life, for it is the High Street

hat whatsoever things are gay, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever thin

he old Sabbath, not so much among the mass of the people as among the wealthy. The new kindly Sabbath has arisen with the new attitude of children towards parents. The children

ernoon, and evening are given up to them. In the summer there is the great treat of tea in the garden. In the winter tea is taken in the room that is sometimes called the "drawing

g or recite to the "company." Too, they are allowed to sit up an hour or so later, and in this last hour every kind of pagan amusement is set going

there are only about three others, but unfortunately I know that there

ent here from week-days, in that the children are allowed to spend the day outside the nursery, with their parents. They go to church in the morning with Mother and Father. They d

ed profane. They are never allowed to hop, skip, or jump. They are told that Jesus will not be pleased with them if they do. They are not allowed to read secular books or look at pagan pictures. In the afternoon, they are given Doré's Bible and an illustrated "Paradise Lost" or "Pilgrim's Progress." In th

one of them. She shows it to Johnnie, and they both giggle. Father looks up severely, and warns her. Then Johnnie, not to be outdone, remembers something he has heard about at school, and hunts through the Book of Kings to find it. He fi

with her hands behind her, while Mother and Father lecture her on Blasphemy. The bell is then rung, and Nurse is sent for. She is hande

After burning with indignation and humiliation for some time, she falls at last to sleep,

RAN

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s went to Highbury and the Fitzroy regions because they found their atmosphere ready-made, or whether the districts have acquired their atmosphere from the German settlers. Certainly they have everything that is most Germanically oppressive: mist, large women, lager and leberwurst, and a moral atmosphere of t

t the waist and soup-splashed at the lapels. His boots are battered, his trousers threadbare. He carries jaunty eye-glasses, a jaunty silk hat, and shaves once a week. He walks with both hands in trousers pockets and feet out-splayed. The poor laddie is sadly outmoded,

treet, and cried: "Where

ow," I said

ll come

dued brilliance. London was in song. Cabs and 'buses and the evening crowd made its music. I heard it calling me. So di

at the American end of the bar, with their escorts, drinking Horse's Necks, Maiden's Prayers, Mother's Milks, Manhattans, and Scotch Highballs. Elsewhere the Cockney revellers were drinking their eternal whisky-and-sodas or beers, and their salutations led Georgie to a disquisition on the changing toasts of the last

le alleys off Cornhill and Lombard Street. I agree, too, with Georgie in deploring the passing of the public-house mid-day ordinary. From his recollections, I learn that the sixties and seventies were the halcyon days for feeding-indeed, the only time when Londoners really lived; and an elderly uncle of mine, who, at that time, went everywhere

has to dress. Those that remain are mere drinking-places; you can, if you wish, get a dusty

when you get a good English waiter you get the very best waiter in the world. There is Albert-no end of a good fellow. He shares with all English waiters a fine disregard for form; yet he has that i

t-I've had a cheque to-day. What's best-and damn the expense?" And Albert advises you in each emerge

e hundred other what-not feeding-bins of London. I talked of the Welsh rarebits at "The Old Bell," the theatrical house in Wellington Street, and of the Friday night tripe-and-onion suppers at "The Plough," Clapham. Georgie thought that his fourpenny feed in the cab-shelter at Duncannon Street was an easy first, until I asked him if he knew the eating-houses of the South London Road, and his har

s, next. Then The Poor Man's Friend. Then Bingo's Fish Bar. Coffee Caravanserai farther up. And-Lord!-S. P. and O. everywhere for threepence-halfpenny. What a sight, boy! Ever walked down it at the end of a day without a meal and without a penny? I should say so. And nearly flung bricks through the windows-what? Sausages swimming in bubbling gravy. Or tucked in, all snug and comf

when I display emotion over things like shops, taxicabs, dinners, drinks, railway journeys, music-halls, and cry, "Tommy-for the Lord's sake, shut up!" But Georgie understands. He understands why I cackle with delight when the new Stores Catalogue arrives. (By the way, if ever I made a list of the Hundred Best Books, number one would be an Illustrated Stores Catalogue. What a wonderful bedside book it is! There is surely nothing

e little girls of the Irish and foreign quarters were too distractingly lovely for him, as he is one of those unfortunates who want every pretty thing they see and are miserable for a week if they can't get it. His idea was to run over to Homerton. Did I know old Jumbo? Fat old Jumbo. Jumbo, who kept Jumbo's, under the arches, where you got cut from t

ngs at fourpence are better. I had one of these, garnished with "boiled and tops." Georgie had "leg, well done, chips, and batter." I never knew a man who could do the commonplace with so much natural dignity. He gave his order with the air of a viveur planning a ten-course arrangement at Claridge's. He shouted for a half-of-bitter with the solemnity of one who commands that two

at Willie's about-how many was it?-twenty years ago? What a NIGHT! Did he remember how Phil May had squirted the syphon down poor old Pitcher's neck

r came along, and we started on it. I prefer to be attended by Jumbo. Dusty's service of steak-pudding is rather in the

g to-day: that lies buried for ever in the yellow mists of the MS. Room at the British Museum. Motor-'buses will snatch you from St. James's Palace, dash you through the City, and land you, within twenty minutes, breathless and bewildered, in the very spot where Sir John climbed from his steed. There is little now that is naughty and light-hearted. There is much that is sombrely wicked, and there are numbers of unsweetened ladies attached to the churches; and if it should chance to be one of your bad days, you may hear, as you stand musing upon the fringe of the Downs, in place of Sir John's insoucia

bar (8d. per doz.), the baked potato and chestnut man, and (an innovation of 1914) the man in the white dress with a portable tin, selling pommes frites in grease-proof bags at a penny a time. But

wo!" I was expecting a new drink, but the barman seemed to understand, for he brought us two tiny glasses of green liqueur, looked at Georgie, casually, then again, sharply, and said, in mild surprise, "God ... it's old Georgie!" and then went to attend the four-ale bar. When he came back we exchanged courtesies, and bought, for ourselves and for him,

l midnight, the beasts of pleasure pace their cells. I have often remarked to various people on the dearth of decent music in our lounges and cafés. I once discussed the matter with the chef d'orchestre of the Café de l'Europe, but he confessed his inability to reform matters. Why can't we have one place in London where one can get drinks, or coffee if desired, and listen to really good music? There is a mass of the best work that is suitable for quartet or quintet, or has been adapted for small orchestra; why is it

"That Midnight Choo-choo," "Tipperary," "Tales of Hoffman" Barcarolle, "All Aboard for Dixie," "In my Harem," and "The Ragtime N

are no bad seasons-one that will survive and flourish until the world ceases to play the quaint comedy of love. All the world loves a lover, and none more so than the tattoo artist, or, to give him his professional name, Professor Sylvanus Ruffino, the world's champion, whose studio is in Commercial Road. When a young man of that district has been bitten by the serpent of love, what does he do? He goes to Sylvanus, and has the name of the lady

punctured. Winter, he tells me, contradicting the poet, is his best time. He finds that in Shadwell and the neighbourhood the young man's fancy turns more definitely to love in the dark evenings than in the spring. As soon as October sets in his studio is crowded with boys who de

ciality of the London coffee-stall. Most stalls have their "regulars," especially those that are so fortunate as to pitch near a Works of any kind. The stall we visited was on the outskirts of Soho, and near a large colour

tone changes. Up to four o'clock it's the stay-up-all-nights; after that hour it's the get-up-earlys. One minute there would be a would-be viveur, in sleek dress clothes; then along comes a cadger; then along comes a warrior from the battlefield. Then, with drowsy clatter, up comes a gang of roadmen, scavengers, railway workers, and so on. A little later c

right touch for him, but he does not understand. It is a poor faded thing, this district; not glamorously old; just ridiculously out of fashion. Shops and houses are all echoes of the terrible seventies, and you seem to hear the painf

the silly little houses, I par