Los Angeles herald., 1907-05-26
London and Paris After Midnight
From the london E1press

T ONDON at night What visions of
wild revels the words conjure up
what thrills-what purple pictures!
The great city. after its days toll
given up to thoughtless dissipation, the
capital of the empire rioting in Titanic
abandonment
Imaginative writers have been in
spired by the words London at night"
to describe the revels with that touch
of half -blushing enjoyment that such a
subject demands from an English pen.
But without their imagination how
different the picture would be.
After some years absence from Lon
don, returned to find it the quietest.
dullest, most early-to-bed city in the
world I have frequently strolled re-
Gently about the streets In the west
end from dinner time till the early
hours, and 1 have often enjoyed a
quiet solitude a country lane might
envy. Saturday night, be 1t added. is
an exception, and on a fine Sunday
evening the streets are crowded until
IL or so by weary and rather bored
looking strollers.
Take Piccadilly circus on an ordinary
evening as the central point of west
end London. From 1880 to $3.50 1t is
crowded with cabs, carriages and pc
destrians hurrying to restaurants ana
theaters. From $3.50 to $3.50 there is
still a steady stream, though the rush
Is less and decreases with every quar-
ter of an hour At ten a great calm
settles down.
1 walked a night or two ago from
Oxford circus to the Carlton hotel be-
tween 10 and 10:30, and it is we'll within
the truth to say that one met far
Co. floY n
the same hour in the central streets
of Birmingham or Manchester, or in
the main suburban thoroughfares.
From Oxford circus to Picadilly circus
seven cabs, two motors, and a carriage
passed me, and the omnibuses were
three parts empty.
Waking Up
The deadness goes on till II. Just
before IL the omnibuses fill up with
wary theatergoers, avoiding the rush
by leaving a few minutes before the
fall Of the curtain. At 11:15 the streets
are crowded. The Strand Is blocked,
Coventry street is blocked, there is a
long, waiting queue of vehicles across
Piccadilly circus.
Thanks to the packing of theaters to-
gether in three or four streets, cheek
by jowl with each other, getting away
from a playhouse is long business in
London.
The Lyric, the Apollo and the Hicks,
for example, contribute mutually him
dering lines of carriages and cabs,
which it takes all the phenomenal re-
source of the London policeman to un-
ravel. But by 1880 the cabs and car
riages are away, 70 per cent home to
Kensington, Mayfair, or Bayswater, 80
per cent, perhaps, to the habf dozen
restaurants that do a supper trade.
For London does not sup. The great
mass of playgoers live in the suburbs,
and they rush away to omnibuses,
tube and train. A minority of the
very well-to-do go on to the fashion
able restaurants. A still smaller mi
nority of middle-class foreigners, actors,
journalists and so on, may be found in
one or two brasseries, and there are
still left very few frankly fast sup
per places.
Empty Clubs
But after the theater London goes
home. The clubs in Pail Mall and the
ST. James district are empty and desc
late. 1 know nothing more depressing
than supper at an ordinary club, with
a waiter yearning for bed and frankly
disappearing, and a night porter gaz-
ing with evident wonder at any sane
man being up after IL.
The only clubs that are not deserted
at midnight are actors clubs, like the
Garrick and the Green Room, and bo-
hemian resorts like the Savage and the
Eccentric. And even they are emptier
than they used to be, and are deserted
hours earlier than they were genera
tion ago. The race Of men who sat up
talking night after night until 6 or z
has entirely disappeared.
Twelve-t thirty sees the close of the
restaurants, and for few minutes an
other little stream of cabs and car
riages. There is a rush for the last
omnibus. And then the city is really
asleep.
At / o'clock the west end is a desert.
At a time when Paris is wide awake,
when the cafes are crowded and the
central streets packed London is tucked
up and fast asleep. The just and the
unjust have gone to their homes. The
streets are left to the policemen and
the cabman-a strange optirnist who