LONDON’S NIGHT LIFE

Otago Witness, Issue 3594, 30 January 1923, Page 21

LONDON’S NIGHT LIFE

ROMANCE ALL FALSE. SORDID “DANCE OF FOOLS” Glamour, romance, excitement—these are the conditions invariably associated with the night life of London’s underworld. And yet they are far from the truth, says a writer in a London paper. The glamour is a deception, the excitement unreal, the romance —why, the very word is an irony. Come with me to one of these “night clubs,” the loneliest places in the world, where no one knows his neighbour, and the only bond is money to be wasted. What do you see? A number of women, either over-dressed or under-dressed, whose public vaunting usually hides some miserable little private tragedy. They are talking together in groups, and now and then you catch the sound of some unprintable oath. It is after 3, and the band has gone, leaving only a little man with a squat face at the piano, and an over-fed greasy companion. Occasionally these two exchange an obscene jest with some of the women. sently they begin to play—and play vilely. You are below the street level, and from above comes the irregular thud of footsteps descending the stair. Foppish and not too sober young men of the public school type, their faces idiotically flushed, slide or straggle across the floor, and finding a partner, begin to dance in various styles of brainless and unsightly exaggeration. MONEYED RIFF-RAFF. Presently, a still less savoury male element begins to appear in the persons of flashily dressed East End tailors, shady turf agents, low types of half-Anglicised half-Americanised aliens, and the general moneyed riff-raff of London. How they get the money they spend is a mystery. I have seen the same men night after night pay 15s for admission, besides charges for refreshments, which often consist of whisky and water disguised as cold “consomme” by the siniple device of being served in teacups. . All the women are over-tired, and obviously struggling against the irritability that is the result of a strained and unhealthy life of dissipated vitality and insufficient , sleep. But they must not reveal their raw nerves. It would lessen their market price. . . . There is only one note sounding throughout the place of garish sights and harsh sounds. It is dull —desperately, incredibly dull. Even its repulsiveness is boring. It is a .meaningless, unending, dance of fools and “souteneurs” and wretched women. And here is the last loathsomeness; it is these women that keep such places going. It is they who attract the men—young fools who think they are “seeing life.” THE OPIUM DEN. Having learnt so much, if you are neither a philosopher nor a fool, you will get outside as soon as possible. But what of the opium den? Shall we not there, at least, find something of the romance that clings to strange excesses? Some Eastern mystery of half-lights and coloured dreams? Much has been written about the opium den, throwing a light of romance upon it, but such writing is false. There is no romance. _ Mostly it is merely a tale of which one half is not repeatable and the other half not worth repeating. There is no mystery, except of human degeneracy; no “atmosphere” except an almost unbreathable one. The traditional Chinaman of the flowing silken robe and the secret smile is 'a myth, The owner of the place is a little man In greasy trousers and coat, trying to make a living in the handiest way he can. His clients are not figures with a strange history. They are sailors, stokers, tramps, thieves, touts—anything. A mere snoring, unwashed heap of sodden humanity that will some time or other wake up and probably be sick. That is all—and that is the “Romance” of night life in London. On the whole, a rather tedious and extravagant way of committing suicide.