The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1883-12-21
WICKED LONDON.
Tho British Metropolis Moro De
PRAYED Than Paris.

Philadelphia Press.
London, by the way. iswickeder than
ever and has already distanced Paris.
That old French harlot is simply living
on her past reputation for wickedness.
She strives hard to keep it up for the
enticement of the, foreign tourist, but
the result is only cheap and tawdy
imitation Of the gayeties of the days Of
the empire. The city is beautiful still.
and the people are as light hearted and
needless as their ways are picturesque,
but the Parisians themselves are not
fools enough to spend their money on
the Alterations of vice which are cum
ningly devised and laboriously carried
on for the benefit of the stranger within
their gates. The Jardin Mabille business
is played out; at the students balls,
over in the Latin quarter, there are
neither pleasure-seeking students nor
pleasure.givin grisettes, and the salons
Of sin, whose magnificence and whose
treasures have been 80 often portrayed
in glowing colors, and still are by French
noVelists writing for American readers,
are shambles of prostitution. into which
tourists are decoyed by subsidized cour-
iers and leave their self-respect with
out deriving even the compensation
which beauty bestows upon the treach.
erous eye.
This 10 q delicate subject to handle,
but it is time newspapers were begin.
ming to tell the truth about it. fla
young man wants to pay for seeing the
sights of Paris, whatever they are, let
him do 1t, but don't let him do it with
the idea that he Is going to find vice
more attractive than anywhere else. It
is the fashion ofpeople who have been
taken In by these shams to come home
and tell big stories to keep up the illu.
sion; but don't you believe word of
them.
No, If you seek the wickedest city in
to the world always barring Chicago), 20
to the city Of Westminster Abbey. Exeter
Hall, st. Paul's church, the salvation
army, and Charles H. Spurgeon-go to
London. With much outward show of
goodness, and much real goodness, with
sweetsr chimes of church calling bells
than can be heard anywhere else in all
Christendom; with Sabbath laws recall
ing the days Of the Puritans; with great
charities carrying healing to the sick
and freedom to the oppressed of all ma
tons: with printing presses flooding the
world with traces and Bibles; wi n tn ou-
sands of pulpits dispensing the gospei;
with an b. nest policy. and
Q universal obedience to law: with stores
vi refining influences sutfi Il mt To Stock
q universe, and with everything within
reach tnat can tend to make people vir-
tuous and happy, London abandons her
self to vice with a brazen recklessness
whichplaces her on level with Sodom
vices of the sinms. so carefully hidden
from the eyes of decency, but of the
tide which nightly tlushes the thorough.
fares with the filth OF The sewers, and
whose stencil has become such matt r
of course that nobody seems to mind it.
The scene ON the Strand and Fleet street,
on the Haymarket, Oh Regent Circus,
and on Waterloo Place, in the two hours
next to midnight would not he tolerated
in such capitals as Paris and Berlin, and
the obscene revels of some other quar-.
ters would have turned the stomach OF
old Babylon. Fashion las its Rotton
Row in the day time; the name were
better bestowed upon the two or three
hundred yards of well paved street
where prostitution makes its nightly
parade under police protection. West
minister Abbey accommodates o few
hundred worshipers day. The Royal
Aquarium, within a stones throw oft,
is the rendezvous Of thousands at night,
mems prayer meeting Which ftord som as
body is conducting in Exetar hall. Out
side, in fulfillmento of Scripture propil-
ecy, seven women lay hold of one man,
and public house doors are besieged bv
women and children clamoring for drink.
For two or three hours the London that
isfvisible to the stranger seems like a
slice of the inferno.