Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-12-05
S|X-PAGE EDITION
OUR LONDON LETTER.
PIcApILLY CIRCUS AND TOP CT tbs
HAYMARKET.
Gay retchedness-Pageant of the Lord
Mayor-Popular Hangmen-The
Underground Explosion.
LONDON. November L. 1859

LONDON, November II, 1883.
Few male visitors to London are unsc
quainted with the neighborhood about
Picsdilly circus and the top of the Hay.
market, and many American ladies also
know it, but the latter only go shopping
there, and are, consequently, only &C
quainted with its daylight character. AT
night il wears different aspect. No re.
spectacle woman should be seen in this
locality after or 9 o'clock, without an
escort, and even with a protector she
would better be in cab than on the side
walks. One sees here miniature view of
the gayest life of Paris. The glare of the
cafes, the rich and tasteful toilets of the
females, and the many men to be seen in
full evening dress, all remind you of that
city, though, Of course, the scene lacks
much of the Partisan brilliancY. This
panorama of gaiety begins when the erdi.
nary shops have closed, and its culmina-
ton and grand finale is reached when, half
an hour after midnight, the mixed crowds
pour out from the
FASHIONABLE PLACES OF ENTERTAINMENT.
Then you witness sights such as one ought
not to wish to see more than once In life
time. The Criterion side of Regent street,
below the circus, is one conglomerate mass
of pleasure. seeking humanity-the sterner
and gentler sexes mingling with the utmost
abandon-the police seeming to have no
higher mission than simply to keep the
throng in motion. You may sing, swear,
caress and utter the foulest talk, but you
must move on. The females are young and
elegantly dressed, and many of them, in
the gsslight, seem to have pretty faces, but
liquor and shame have destroyed all sense
of deaency, and as you watch their frolics
you blush for the sex they Disgrace. The
men, | regret to say, are not all young, nor
are the youngest the most reckless in their
actions. One can excuse folly in those
who know little of the world and have few
obligations resting upon them, for the
nope Ia that age will teach them discretion.
But
MANY GRAY BEARDED SINNERS
Are there-some, doubtless, having wives
and daughters st home who regard them
as gems of innocency. This scene is en-
acted nightly throughout the whole year.
The characters change, but the play goes
on. A few weeks hence many OF the male
participants will have resumed habits of
respectability. The older will have gone
back to the bosoms of their unsuspecting
families, and some of the younger may
perchsnCe have led some pure maiden to
the altar Some of the females, too, will
have gone, but the change for these will
mean, not an upward, but a downward
csreer-a deeper plunge into the abyss of
vice, or a plunge, it may be, in some mo-
ment Of overwhelming despair, into the
Thames. Occasionally, as a week ago,
this scene is varied by the introduction
into it of additional elements of uproar-
business and even of violence. That night
tine cafes were closed at o'clock. They
had to close in self.protection, for mob
of medical students TOOK possession and
were rapidly making kindling- wood of the
furniture. Turned INFO the streets, these
NJ. S. g, whose natures could be better IN
dicated if the first letter in these initials
were changed for an a, betook themselves
to the noble psstime of smashing gentle
mems hats and Of heaping greater indigui-
ties than usual upon the luckless females
who iDfest that neighborhood. The fun
continued till the early morning, and no
arrests were made, the explanation being
that it was the anniversary Of the Prince
of Wales birthday, and that these gay
young sports were given annual license to
thus make merry over the event. On the
same day occurred the
PAGEANT OF THE NEW LORD MAYOR.
To an American witnessing this show for
the first time it was a sore disappointment.
A few banners, a few bands, a few car
riages, few powdered lsckeys, gilded
coach containing the great civic function
airy whom the city was supposed to be hon
oring, some representatives Of the city's
business interests, few emblems from the
late international Fisheries Exhibition,
and-that was all. No, it was not all,
either, for in the demonstrations made by
the mighty crowds witnessing the show
one got an insight, anything but creditable
to the country, into the anomalies which
mark and mar the forms of government IN
vogue here. The strange spectacle was
presented of the pOpulsce all along the line
of march kissing the new Lord Mayor, and
greeting the one whom the Court OF Alder
men had rejected with continuous cheers.
Thus, evidently, the will of the people had
been defeated, and this was their only
means of redress. In Parliamentary al
faira it is largely the same. The House of
Commons, far from being representative.
is packed body less 80 than formerly,
but sufficiently so yet to render it impos
sible for the voice of the majority to find
proper expression there, Thanks, how
ever, to the present Liberal Government,
the time is not far distant when both the
government of this city and the franchise
OF the nation at large will be placed on a
basis more in accordance with common
sense and nineteenth century ideas OF
progress.
THE NEW HANGMASTER.
Tire new sensation is Blnns-Binns the
butcher that IS, the public exeeutiOner.
To observe the widespread interest taken
in this man, one would imagine that one
half the people Of these isles had some ex.
psctation Of falling into his hands. He has
dispatched three victims within the past
week and these first efforts, we are told,
were very satisfactory. He Is said to be
| fully equal to Marwood, and no doubt he
has an Illnstrious career before him. HAY.
| ing adopted the profession. IS he declares
he did, from a love for notoriety, he viii
- l...,.;,toJ l., his yredacesvnv