The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1876-04-13

/ w uitsfualtt OF SOUTHWARK, To see tins
fair and noble girl pick her way was &
spectacle not without significance. II
brought into contrast the terrific dis
tauee, moral and material, b, tween the
limited wealthy class and the hordes OF
labor, misery, and crime.
The Drury Lane Music hall, with its
several bars, its pit filled with small
tradesmen and their wives, and fact
clerks and porters with their girls its
galleries crowded with motley crews oi
doubtful men and women its upper gal.
lery crammed with boys, the gamins OF
London, viewing on the stage the pleas
ures Of vice, the apotheosis Of crime
was only few degrees down below the
more elegant and glittering saloons OF a
higher society. There young rascaldOm
learned how to drink and swear with the
worst. There Emily saw children not a.
high a. the bar taking hot gin-and water
as IT it were milk, and staggering of to
Heaven knows what attempts TO emulate
the wickedness Of their elders
Searching a court out OF Gray's Inn
Lane one night when the "Old Arm
Chair public-house had emptied its last
frequenters into the street, she had there
seen her conductor, policeman, pene-
trate a crowd OF drunken wretches
stretching their necks TO see n man who,
in drunken fury had caught the hair Of
his wife, also drunk, and twisting IL
round his hand, was hauling at the
shrieking victim with his knee upon her
chest.
IL was when the public houses were
about turning out in Whitechapel that
Emily took her way thither with the in.
spector and his sergeant to canvass the
reeking lodging-houses in search of the
wanderer. An early visit TO the places
in Flowerand. Dean Street and therea-
bouts, where sometimes as many as three
hundred beds are occupied Of a night at
threepence or iourpence apiece. opens up
to the thoughtful mind a vista OF sor-
row so long, so various, aud 80 horrible
that one might well shrink from eucoun-
tering the intense awfulness of the spec.
tacle at an hour when half hundred
neighboring gin shops are disgorging
their throngs of drunken customers II
is there that you may learn that however
bad human nature may be, there is some
thing you can administer to il and make
it worse, and that there is nothing so
devilish but what drink will add to its
deviltry
Strange and dismal outcome Of ciyili.
Iationl To enter the thronged kitchen
Of these carayansaries Of crime and beg.
gary, and look round eagerly for the be-
loved face, was to Emily Bighorne TO
learn a narrowing lesson in humanity.
A mixed crowd-thieves. tramps. beg.
gars Here, perhaps, Scotchman on
crutches. arguing even on that weak ba-
sis with an inspirited Irishman; there n
group of youngish pale fellows, whose
hu al fs.fl
but preyed with light fingers on the
watches Of mankind, their glances fur
tive, their faces sometimes marked with
scars or bruises OF night affrays, or tied
up in bloody kerchiefs. Here, again. a
weary traveller, with q great shock Of
rough hair, IN a suit of shabby velveteen.
who had dropped off asleep with his hat
and bundle by his side. And again n
gentleman's gentleman, evidently under
the weather, with n black suit very
seedy, and his tall hat brushed into a
bright polish. sitting apart in disconso-
late incongruity with the rough elements
around him. Slovenly mothers with
dirty children; girls with coarse Tepul-
sive features; some with black eyes, the
tell-tales OF the dangerous life they led
and here and there the scrofulOus infant
whose appearance made the observer
shudder to think what a hopeless thing
was life for il from cradle TO grave. You
could not have collected two pounds
among the hundred, and yet there was
hardly one that had not left q toll that
night at the public house. Profits OF
theft, proceeds Of pawn or sale OF the
last passable garment, days begging. or
casual wage, all gone down into the till
OF the publican. TO leave these people as
they were-nay. worse. and with less Of
hope
Thus lac, the Publican, emissAry OF the
brewer and distiller, works at both ends
to bring down the high, TO confirm and
deepen the degradation Of the low.
Here is his shop, divided into com
partments for bar, retail, and refresh
ment. Two or three rows Of ivory han
died pumps. their brass bright and shin.
ing; dinted pewters and polished glasses
ranged along the metal shelves. Some
times a row Of great pipes Of spirits.
tapped to pour their fiery water into the
cans which supply the model barrels Of
glass on the shelf behind the bar; and
hundreds of bottles OF every shape and
every hue Of bright contents arranged in
ranks wherever a astanding-place
can be found. Flaring gas, bright mir.
ror, foaming pewter, smoking glass.
quick bar-maids, drawing. drawing. draw.
ing from the endless store, and dropping.
dropping. dropping with a merry chink
the hopes and healths Of many n custo-
mer into their tills There is little dif
ference truly between the splendid bars
Of the West End and their kindred in
stitutions in Whitechapel or Southwark.
They are all equally designed to allure
and stimulate the feverish thirst The
pale and weary girls who. 1T the hum
bier places, serve out to ragged poverty
and crime or robust labor their lush and
stingo are no worse than the frumped- up
beauties who, as they exchange free
Jokes or affected compliments with
lounging clerks, or dandy blacklegs. or
fast young parvenus, keep them alive
with hips and tonics.
One night Emily. disguised in a coarse
wooden dress and n staid bonnet with a
thick veil, entered, in the course Of her
trying round, one Of the houses in Rat
cliffe Highway which had a license for
liquor, music. and dancing The bar be-
low was filed with sailors Of every ma.
tionality. engaged in drinking. in poly
glot blasphemy. and coarse cOurtship.
Lascar. Swede, Russian, Dane, Dutchman,
Italian, mingled with the sons OF the
three kingdoms. Here possibly Henry
might have found his way to endeayor
To get berth in some obscure vessel
Through the crammed bar a lane was
forthwith made, at the call OF the stout
landlady, as soon as tie inspectors face
was seen: while the publican Ga powerful
man. who had been detective in his
dayl turned with ludicrous solemnity To
demonstrate with a tipsy woman Tor us
ing improper language-a remonstrance
she treated with derisiye leyity.
Up few steps and through door.they
passed into room resOunding with odd
orchestral music. lofty room with a
yentilating skylight The walls were
decorated with paper in gaudy panels,
ia the middle Of which were depicted
highly colored Terpsichoresn beauties.