Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-10-03
AN AMERICAN ABROAD.
What He Thinks Of London aEnd the
Alleged American Bar.
NJ. p. Handy, in Philadelphia Press.

NJ. p. Handy, in Philadelphia Press.
No; if you seek the wickedest city In the
world (always barring Chicago), go to the city
Of Westminster Abbey, Exeter Hall, St. Paul's
church, the Salvation Army and Charles II.
Spurgeon-got to London. With much outward
show of goodness and much real goodness,
with sweeter chimes Of church-calling bells
than can be heard anywhere else In all Christen-
dom. with Sabbath laws recalling the days OF
the Puritans, with great charities carrying heal
ing to the sick and freedom to the oppressed OF
all nations. with printing presses flooding the
world with tracts and Bibles, with thousands OF
pulpits dispensing the gospel, with an honest
police and a universal obedience to law, with
stores of refining influences sufficient to stock
universe and with everything within reach that
can tend to make people virtu0us and happy,
London abandons herself to vice with brazen
SOdOm and Gomorrah.
I do not speak of the vices Of the slums, 30
carefully hidden from the eyes Of decency, but
Of the tide which nightly fushes the thorough
fares with the filth of the sewers. and whose
stencil has become such q matter of course that
nobody seems to mind it. The scene on the
Strand and Fleet street, on the Haymarket, on
Regent Circus and on Waterloo Place in the two
hours next to midnight would not be tolerated
In such capitals as Paris and Berlin, and the OBJ
scene revels of some other quarters would have
turned the stomach Of old Babylon. Fashion
has its Rotten Row in the daytime; the name
were better bestowed upon the two or three
hundred yards of well-paved street where pros
titutiOn makes it's nightly parade under police
protection. Westminster Abbey accommodates
Aquarium, within stones throw of it, is the
rendezvous Ut thousands at night. A dozen
people are attending q young mems PRAYER
meeting which Lord Somebody is conducting in
Exeter Hall. Outside, in fulfllment Ofscriptufe
prophecy, seven women lay hold upon one man,
and pubiic-hOuse doors are beseged by women
and children clam0ring for drink. For two or
three hours the London that is visible to the
stranger seems like slice of the Inferno.
On this side OF the water we make game Of the
young fools, and some old ones. who ape English
customs and English mannerisms, especially in
dress and speech. It was a consolation to find
that on the other side there are almost as many
fools apeing u.s. The rule applies moreover in
either case, that the bad, and not the good, is
copied, and in copying is made worse. The
greatest fraud of all things going under the
name OF American is the American bar, which is
the rage in London and Paris, and flourishes
with Pickering promise in Berlin, Brussels and
even Amsterdam.
Probably the.worst specimens are to be seen
at the Criterion and COvent Garden, places
are wont to gather and spend their money in
the dilution Of their brains. The so-called
American bar differs from the English bar
Chiefly in that the drinks are more villainous
and various, and that you pay four or five prices
for them. "All American drinks one shiing''
ii. e., quarter Of a dollar, is the legend over
these poison shops. Then they display long
list Of mixtures a majority Of which no Ameri-
can ever heard Of before, with enough
''smashes, :" Cocktails" and so on in the lot to
give the whole an air of plausibility to people
who draw their ideas of American life and no.
menclature from the writings Of Bret Harte and
recOlections Of Sam Slick, refreshed by whifrs
Of Mark Twain's Mississippi pilot vocabulary.
am not q drinking man, but II were I would
face death rather than these vile compounds
with their viler names.