GIN PALACES AND BARMAIDS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3357, 7 January 1884, Page 2

GIN PALACES AND BARMAIDS.

The following description of a phase of London life is by the correspondent of an American journal:— In the streets the air is purer than in the gilded dens, though, if it be getting late, you will see even on the thorough, fares the same evidences of human depravity. Those brilliantly - lighted fronts that you observe at short intervals, as the eye sweeps up and down the sidewalk, mark the location of drinking saloons. These London gin palaces differ from those found in American cities, in being more popular and much more numerous; also, in carrying on their business with less attempt at concealment, and in being patronised so largely by women. You need notenter to learn what is going on inside; a full view can be had in most cases through the large windows or half-open doors. Bepresentatives of all classes crowd about the bar, and the drink is served mostly by fair hands that look sadly out of place engaged in such an occupation! These barmaids of England, what mischief they do (unintentionally, I grant) by adding the blandishments of social chat to the pleasures of tippling! aye, and into what shame and sorrow many of them are plunged by the vile associations of their calling 1 But we must not tarry. Flower women, and those engaged in selling matches, papers, pictures, &c., are familiar objects in the London streets at night. The paper boy will furnish you anything from the most respectable evening journal to “ The Rag,” whose name sufficiently indicates its nature. This sheet has appropriate companions in “The Masher,” “The Matrimonial Nows,” and “ Town Talk,”—-a sorry lot, scarcely fit to kindle a fire with. London by night I How many, as the hours wear on, will find themselves houseless and homeless in this city of palaces and mansions! What tragedies its top attics and dark cellars and dismal river banks may witness! Last year 28 children and 154 adults were entirely lost in this city. How many may be lost to night I The waters of the Thames yield annually from fifty to a hundred bodies that are never identified. How many unknown and unfortunate ones may plunge madly into that river to-night! Two hundred and seventy-four suicides here in the last

twelve months and 470 burglaries—nearly all committed, of course, after the sun has gone down. But the “ lights of London,” which witness so much that is evil and sad, see also not a little that is grand and sublime. If the outcasts are abroad, so likewise are the Samaritans, and you will be peculiarly unfortunate if before your travels to-night are oyer you do not see some of those inviting wanderers to places of refuge, and seeking to win the victims from the error of their ways.