The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-07-31
Customers are Respectfully Informed
That Parlor Prices are Charged
In This Department.

The woman behind the bar was very
civil, and the place looked as neat as many
a saloon in America, but the people who
occupied the benches were a study for
painter of outlaws. Here, as elsewhere,
were women and girls-brazen, leather
checked creatures, with bright, suspicious
ewes, quick movements, hOarse voices and
gibbering laugh. The detective informed
us it was a dangerous place, and that two
policemen were always kept near the
door. On Saturday night everybody is at
home, and the beggars come IN to divide
up their spoils and to hold their weekly
revels. Then the big British officers are
very careful about getting mixed up in any
rows. Many a time the policeman, he
said. has been thrown down and kicked
numerically by the crowd, who would
veil: you have got him down; now give
it to him until he can't squeal."
''They don't know what mercy Is, said
an outside officer coming up while we were
talking. From the time we entered the
street, and while we were in the tavern,
the tough-looking characters were on
watch like sentinels on each side OF the
door up and down the street, hoping to
get a chance to raid US or steal something,
should a fight occur. When strangers
come around these thieves and receivers
of stolen goods swarm from the holes in
the walls like wolves from their dens, and
a man is as helpless among them as a
child in the jaws of a crocodile.
In HanbuTv-st. in brick-yard, with dry
goods boxes piled up far above the fence,
is where Annie Chapman was found with
her throat cutand body mutilated on Sept.
8. A bright young lad, with fair hair,
mild blue eyes and a good face, explained
the circumstances and how the body was
found, all OF which has been told in the
Herald. He had been at school and he
looked like a respectable boy, but all
around him were thieves and cutthroats,
and as he stood there in the gloom of the
night holding a candle aloft it was a sight
for missionaries to weep over.
The detective took us into one of the
typical lodging houses of the White
Chapel district. The scene was revolving
Little signs, wreathed with holly, laurel
and ivy, were over the door, bearing the
inscriptions, "Peace to All Nations" "A
Hearty Welcome" Also the additional
intelligence that "This is a noted house
for double and single beds" Here was
democracy and no nihilism. Thieves,
garroters, beggars, receivers of stolen
goods, safe burglars, kidnapers and the
vilest OF the London slums were encamped
like Gypsies. They sat on the floor or
leaned over the tables, with pots of beer
and glasses of spirits between them, sing
ing songs and Disappearing as they did in
Hogarth's time, when they ratified their
dice on the tombs of the church-yards.
A word from the detective secured per-
mission to go through the house. The
character oil it may be imagined when it is
said that the price of single bed is but a
penny or two, and that two persons-the
lowest Of all Gods creation-may drink,
shout and blaspheme all night for only
two-pence. Little children with pale
faces, scarcely old enough to lisp the name
OF mother, lay in dark corners on vermln-