The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1883-12-21
WICKED LONDON.
The British Metropolis More Dc.
PRAYED Than Paris.

The British Metropolis More Dc.
PRAYED Than Paris.
Philadelphia Press.
London, by the way. is wickeder 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 foreiga tourist, but
the result is only a cheap and tawdy
imitation ofthe 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 atfectations 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.giving grisettes, and the salons
Of sin, whose magniicence and whose
treasures have been so 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 is a delicate subject to handle,
but 1t is time newspapers were Begin.
ming TO tell the truth about it. Ifa
young man wants to pay for seeing the
sights of Paris, whatever they are, let
him do it, but don't let him do it with
the idea that he is going to find vice
more attractive than anywhere else. 1t
is the fashion Of people who have been
taken in by these slams to come home
and tell big stories to keep up the illu-
sion; but don't you believe a word Of
them.
No, if you seek the wickedest city in
to the world always barring Chicago, go
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
sweet-r chimes of church calling bells
than can be heard anywhere else in all
C%hristendon; with Sabbath laws recall
ing the days oil 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 trac 8 and Bibles; wi thou
sands of pulpits dispensing the gospei;
with an h. nest policy, and
a universal obedience to law; with stores
vi refining Influences sniti Il Ut 10 stock
u universe, and with everything within
reach That can tend TO make a people vir-
tuous and happy, London abandoas her
self to vice with a brazen recklessness
whichplaces her on a level with Sodom
and Gomorrah. l do not speak Of the
vices OF the sinins, so carefully hidden
from the eyes of decency, but of the
tide which nightly flushes the thorough.
fares with the filth of the sewers, and
whose stencil has become such q matt r
Of course that nobody seems to mind it.
The Scene IN the strand and Fleet street,
OF the Haymarket, OH Regent Circus,
and on Waterloo Place, in tue two hours
next to mldnill LIT would not be tolerated
in such capitals az Paris and Berlin, and
the obscene revels of some other quar-.
tiers would have turned the stomach Of
old Babylon. Fashion las It's Rotton
Row in the day time; the name were
hundred yards of well paved street
where prostitution makes its nightly
parade under police protection. West
minister Abbey accemmoGatcs a few
hundred worshipers q day. The ROYAL
Aquarium, within a stones throw Of it,
is the rendezvous OF thousands at night,
a dozen people are attending a young
mems prayer meeting, which Lord Some
body is conducting in Exetur hall. Out
side, in fultillment Of Scripture proph-
ecy, V women lay hold of one man,
and public mouse doors are besieged bv
wo,nenand children clamoring for drink.
For two or three hours the London that
isssvisible to the stranger seems like a
slice Of the inferno.