diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-8.txt | 4776 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-8.zip | bin | 106402 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-h.zip | bin | 143990 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-h/53155-h.htm | 4955 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 25171 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155-h/images/logo.jpg | bin | 7134 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155.txt | 4776 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/53155.zip | bin | 106314 -> 0 bytes |
11 files changed, 17 insertions, 14507 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8c9a5ef --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53155 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53155) diff --git a/old/53155-8.txt b/old/53155-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index f5499ca..0000000 --- a/old/53155-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4776 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Out and About London, by Thomas Burke - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Out and About London - - -Author: Thomas Burke - - - -Release Date: September 28, 2016 [eBook #53155] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON*** - - -E-text prepared by deaurider, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/outaboutlondon00burk - - - - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - - - * * * * * * - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - -NIGHTS IN LONDON - - -"Hundreds of books have been written about London, but few are as well -worth reading as this."--_London Times._ - -"Thomas Burke writes of London as Kipling wrote of India."--_Baltimore -Sun._ - -"A real book."--_New York Sun._ - -4th printing, $1.50 - -HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY -PUBLISHERS NEW YORK - - * * * * * * - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - -by - -THOMAS BURKE - -Author of "Limehouse Nights" -and "Nights In London" - - - - - - - -[Illustration: Logo] - -New York -Henry Holt and Company -1919 - -Copyright, 1919 -by -Henry Holt and Company - - - - - 1916 - - _Lady, the world is old, and we are young. - The world is old to-night and full of tears - And tumbled dreams, and all its songs are sung, - And echoes rise no more from the tombed years. - Lady, the world is old, but we are young._ - - _Once only shines the mellow moon so fair; - One speck of Time is Love's Eternity. - Once only can the stars so light your hair, - And the night make your eyes my psaltery. - Lady, the world is old. Love still is young._ - - _Let us take hand ere the swift moment end. - My heart is but a lamp to light your way. - My song your counsellor, my love your friend, - Your soul the shrine whereat I kneel and pray. - Lady, the world grows old. Let us be young._ - - _T. B._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -ROUND THE TOWN, 1917 3 - -BACK TO DOCKLAND 30 - -CHINATOWN REVISITED 40 - -SOHO CARRIES ON 58 - -OUT OF TOWN 69 - -IN SEARCH OF A SHOW 82 - -VODKA AND VAGABONDS 89 - -THE KIDS' MAN 113 - -CROWDED HOURS 123 - -SATURDAY NIGHT 134 - -RENDEZVOUS 140 - -TRAGEDY AND COCKNEYISM 148 - -MINE EASE AT MINE INN 155 - -RELICS 168 - -ATTABOY! 176 - - - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - - - - -ROUND THE TOWN, 1917 - - -It was a lucid, rain-washed morning--one of those rare mornings when -London seems to laugh before you, disclosing her random beauties. In -every park the trees were hung with adolescent tresses, green and white -and yellow, and the sky was busy with scudding clouds. Even the solemn -bricks had caught something of the sudden colour of the day, and London -seemed to toss in its long, winter sleep and to take the heavy breaths -of the awakening sluggard. - -I turned from my Fleet Street window to my desk, took my pen, found it -in good working order, and put it down. I was hoping that it would be -damaged, or that the ink had run out; I like to deceive myself with some -excuse for not working. But on this occasion none presented itself save -the call of the streets and the happy aspect of things, and I made these -serve my purpose. With me it is always thus. Let there come the first -sharp taste of Spring in the February air and I am demoralized. Away -with labour. The sun is shining. The sky is bland. There are seven -hundred square miles of London in which Adventure is shyly lurking for -those who will seek her out. What about it? So I drew five pounds from -the cash-box, stuffed it into my waistcoat-pocket, and let myself loose, -feeling, as the phrase goes, that I didn't care if it snowed. And as I -walked, there rose in my heart a silly song, with no words and no tune; -or, if any words, something like--how does it go?-- - - - Boys and girls, come out to play-- - Hi-ti-hiddley-hi-ti-hay! - - -But the fool is bent upon a twig. I found the boys preoccupied and the -girls unwearied in war-work. One good comrade of the highways and byways -had married a wife; and therefore he could not come. Another had bought -a yoke of oxen, and must needs go and prove them--as though they were a -problem of Euclid. Luckily, I ran against Caradoc Evans, disguised in a -false beard, in order to escape the fury of the London Welshmen, and -looking like the advance agent of a hard winter. Seeing my silly, -hark-halloa face, he inquired what was up. I explained that I was out -for a day's amusement--the first chance I had had since 1914. -Whereupon, he ran me into a little place round the corner, and bought me -an illicit drink at an hour when the minatory finger of Lord d'Abernon -was still wagging; and informed me with tears in the voice, and many a -"boy bach," and "old bloke," and "indeed," that this was the Year of -Grace 1917, and that London was not amusing. - -It was not until the third drink that I discovered how right he was. As -a born Cockney, living close to London every minute of my life, I had -not noticed the slow change in the face and soul of London. I had long -been superficially aware that something was gone from the streets and -the skies, but the feeling was no more definite than that of the gourmet -whose palate hints that the cook has left something--it cannot say -what--out of the soup. It was left for the swift perception of the -immigrant Welshman to apprise me fully of the truth. But once it was -presented to me, I saw it too clearly. My search for amusement, I knew -then, was at an end, and what had promised to be an empurpling of the -town seemed like to degenerate into a spelling-bee. Of course, I might -have gone back to my desk; but the Spring had worked too far into my -system to allow even a moment's consideration of that alternative. -There remained nothing to do but to wander, and to pray for a glimpse of -that tempestuous petticoat of youth that deserted us in 1914. It was a -forlorn pursuit: I knew I would never touch its hem. - -I never did. I wandered all day with Caradoc bach, and we did this and -we did that, while I strove to shake from my shoulders the bundle of -dismay that seemed fastened there. The young men having gone to war, the -streets were filled with middle-aged women of thirty, in short skirts, -trying to attract the aged satyrs, the only men that remained, by -pretending to be little girls. At mid-day, that hour when, throughout -London, you may hear the symphony of swinging gates and creaking bolts, -we paid hurried calls at the old haunts. They were either empty or -filled with new faces. Rule's, in Maiden Lane, was deserted. The Bodega -had been besieged by, and had capitulated to, the Colonial army. -Mooney's had become the property of the London Irish. The vociferous -rehearsal crowds had decamped from the Bedford Head, and left it to -strayed and gloomy Service men, who cared nothing for its traditions; -and Yates's Wine Lodge, the home of the blue-chinned laddies looking -for a shop, was filled with women war-workers. - -Truly, London was no more herself. The word carried no more the magical -quality with which of old time it was endued. She was no more the -intellectual centre, or the political centre, or the social centre of -the world. She was not even an English city, like Leeds or Sheffield or -Birmingham. She was a large city with a population of nondescript -millions. - -This I realized more clearly when, a week or so after our tour, an -American, whom I was conducting round London, asked me to show him -something typically English. I couldn't. I tried to take him to an -English restaurant. There was none. Even the old chop-houses, under -prevailing restrictions, were offering manufactured food like spaghetti -and disguised offal. I turned to the programmes of the music-halls. Here -again England was frozen out. There were comedians from France, jugglers -from Japan, conjurers from China, trick-cyclists from Belgium, -weight-lifters from Australia, buck-dancers from America, and ... -England, with all thy faults I love thee still; but do take a bit of -interest in yourself. A stranger, arriving from overseas, might suppose -that the war was over, and that London was in the hands of the -conquerors. This impression he might receive from a single glance at our -streets. The Strand at the moment of writing is blocked for pedestrian -traffic by Australians and New Zealanders; Piccadilly Circus belongs to -the Belgians and the French; and the Americans possess Belgravia. -Canadian cafeterias are doing good business round Westminster; French -coffee-bars are thriving in the Shaftesbury Avenue district; Belgian -restaurants occupy the waste corners around Kingsway; and two more -Chinese restaurants have lately been opened in the West End. - -The common Cockney seemed to walk almost fearfully about his invaded -streets, hardly daring to be himself or talk his own language. Apart -from the foreign tongues, which always did annoy his ear, foul language -now assailed him from every side: "no bon," "napoo," "gadget," -"camouflaged," "buckshee," "bonza," and so on. This is not good slang. -Good slang has a quality of its own--a bite and spit and fine -expressiveness which do not belong to dictionary words. That is its -justification--the supplying of a lacking shade of expression, not the -supplanting of adequate forms. The old Cockney slang did justify -itself, but this modern Army rubbish, besides being uncouth, is utterly -meaningless, and might have been invented by some idiot schoolboy: -probably was. - -After some search, we found a quiet corner in a bar where the perverted -stuff was not being talked, and there we gave ourselves to recalling the -little joyous jags that marked the progress of other years. I was -dipping the other night into a favourite bedside book of mine--here I'd -like to put in a dozen pages on bedside books--a Social Calendar for -1909; a rich reliquary for the future historian; and was shocked on -noting the number of simple festivals which are now ruled out of our -monotonous year. Do you remember them? Chestnut Sunday at Bushey -Park--City and Suburban--Derby and Oaks--Ascot Sunday at Maidenhead--Cup -Tie at the Crystal Palace--Spring week-ends by the sea--evening taxi -jaunts to Richmond and Staines--gay nights at the Empire and the -adjoining bars--supper after the theatre--moonlight trips in the summer -season down river to the Nore--polo at Ranelagh--cricket at Lord's and -the Oval--the Boat Race--Henley week--Earl's Court and White City -Exhibitions, where one could finish the evening on the wiggle-woggle, as -a final flicker. And now they have just delivered the most brutal blow -of all. Having robbed us of our motors and our cheap railways, they have -stolen away from the working-man his (and my) chiefest delight--the -beanfeast wagonette. (How I would have loved to take Henry James on one -of these jags.) The disappearance of this delight of the summer season -is, at the moment, so acute and so personal a grief, that I cannot trust -myself to speak of it. I must withdraw, and leave F. W. Thomas (of _The -Star_) to deliver the valedictory address:-- - - - This spells the death of yet another old English institution. One - cannot go beanfeasting in traps and pony carts. There would be no - room for the cornet man, and without his distended cheeks and - dreadful harmony the picture would be incomplete. - - That was a great day when we met at the works in the morning, all - in our best clothes and squeaky boots, all sporting large - buttonholes and cigars of the rifle-range brand. - - With the yellow stone jars safely stowed under the seat and the - cornet man perched at the driver's left hand, we started off. - Usually the route lay through Shoreditch and Hackney to Clapton, - and so to the green fields of the Lea Bridge Road. - - For the first hour of the journey we were quiet, early-morningish, - and a little reminiscent, recalling the glories of past beanfeasts. - The cornet man tootled half-heartedly, with many rests and much - licking of dry lips. Not until the "Greyhound" was passed did he - get well under way, and then there was no stopping him. His face - got redder and redder as he blasted his way through his repertoire; - a feast of music covering the years between "Champagne Charlie" and - Marie Lloyd. - - At the end of the drive the horses were put up and baited, and the - merry beanfeasters spread themselves and their melody through the - glades of Loughton or High Beech, with cold roast beef and pickles - at Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge or the "Robin Hood." - - And who does not remember that joyful homeward journey, with the - cornet man, now ruddier than the cherry, blaring "Little Brown Jug" - from well-oiled lungs, while behind him the revellers sang "As your - hair grows whiter," and an accordion in the back seats bleated "The - Miner's Dream." - - As Herbert Campbell used to sing in the old days:-- - - - Then up I came with my little lot, - And the air went blue for miles; - The trees all shook and the copper took his hook, - And down came all the tiles. - - - That was the real tit-bit of the beanfeast, the rollicking homeward - drive, with the brake embowered in branches of trees raped from the - Forest, and lit by swaying Chinese lanterns and great bunches of - dahlias bought from the cottagers of Loughton, and Chingford. - - One always took home a bunch of flowers from a beanfeast, and maybe - a pint of shrimps for the missus, and some acorns for the - youngsters, or a gilded mug. - - The defunct brake had other uses than this. Sometimes it took - parties of solemn old ladies in beads and black to an orgy of tea - and cake in the grounds of the "Leg of Mutton" at Chadwell Heath. - These were prim affairs. Mothers' Meeting from the little red - church round the corner. They had no cornet, and the smiling parson - rode in the seat assigned to Orpheus. - - The youngsters, too, had their days--riotous days shrill with song - and gay with coloured streamers, air-balloons and trumpets. How - merrily they would bellow that they were "all a-going to Rye House, - so 'Ip-ip-ip-ooray!'" though their destination was Burnham Beeches - or Brickett Wood. - - Rubber-neck parties of American tourists occasionally saw the - sights of London from brakes and wagonettes; solemn people, who for - all the signs of holiday they displayed might have been driving to - Tyburn Tree. - - But the real reason for the brake was the beanfeast with its - attendant cornet man and its rubicund driver with his white topper - and the little boys running behind and stealing rides on the back - step. Until the war is over Epping will know them no more, and the - nightingales of Fairlop Plain will sing to the moon undisturbed. - - -We lunched at the "Trocadero," where a friend on the staff put us in the -right place and put before us the right food and the right wine. The -rooms looked like a Service mess-room. Every guest looked like every -other guest. Men and women alike had fallen victims to that devastating -plague of uniforms, and all charm, all significance, had been -obliterated by this murrain of khaki and blue serge. The suave curves of -feminine dress had been ironed out by the harsh hand of the -standardizer, and in their place we saw only the sullen lines of the -Land Girls' rig making juts and points with the rigidities of the -Women's Army Corps and Women's Police garb. The Vorticists ought to be -thankful for the war. It accomplished in one stroke what, in 1914, they -were feverishly attempting: it turned life into a wilderness of angles. - -"Clothes," said Carlyle, "gave us individuality, distinction, social -polity." He ought to see us now. Standard Bread, Standard Suits, -Standard This, and Standard That.... The very word "standard" must now -be so universally loathed by men who have managed to conceal from the -controllers some remnants of character, that I wonder the _Evening -Standard_ manages to retain its popularity without a change of title. If -standardizing really helped matters, nobody could complain; but can -Dogberry aver that it does? Does it not, in practice, rather hinder than -help? In railway carriages the bottlefed citizen girds against all this -aimless interference with his daily life; but his protests are no more -considerable than that of the victim in the melodrama: "Have a care, Sir -Aubrey, have a care. You have ruined me sister. You have murdered me -wife. You have cast me aged father into prison. You have seduced me son. -You have sold up me home. But beware, Sir Aubrey, beware. I am a man of -quick temper. _Don't go too far._" - -When we looked round the Trocadero, and we remembered the bright -company it once held, and then noted the tart aspect of the place under -organization, we felt a little unwell, and dared to wonder why -efficiency cannot walk with beauty and the zeal for victory go with -grace and gladness. Had the marriage, we wondered, been tried by the -authorities, and the parties proved to be so palpably incompatible? Or -was it that they had been for ever sundered by some one who mistakes -dullness for earnestness and ugliness for strength? - -However, the rich scents of well-cooked offal, mingled with those of -wine and Oriental tobacco, soothed us a little, and we achieved a brief -loosening of the prevailing restraint, and allowed our thoughts to run -without the chain. Our friend had dug from the depths of the cellar a -fragrant Southern wine, true liquid sunshine, tinct with the odour of -green seas; a rare bottle to which I made a chant-royal on the back of -the menu, and, luckily for you, mislaid the thing, or it would be -printed here. We talked freely; not brilliantly, but with just that -touch of piquancy that stimulants and narcotics, rightly used, bestow -upon the brain. - -We lounged over coffee and liqueurs, and then strolled up the Avenue -and called at the establishment of "Mr. Francis Downman," that most -discriminating and charming of wine-merchants--discriminating because he -has given his life to the study of wines; charming because, away from -his wine-cellars and in his true name, he is a novelist whose books, so -lit with sparkle and espièglerie, have carried fair breezes into many a -dusty heart. If you have ever visited that old Queen Anne House in Dean -Street and glanced at "Mr. Downman's" Bulletins, you will realize at -once that here is no ordinary vendor of wines. Wine to "Mr. Downman" is -a serious matter. Opening a bottle is an exquisite ceremony; drinking is -a sacrament. I once lunched with "Mr. Downman" in his cool Dutch kitchen -"over the shop," and each course was lovingly cooked and served by his -own hands, with suitable wines and liqueurs. It was a lesson in simple -and courtly living. How pleasant the homes of England might be if our -housewives would pay a little attention to correct kitchen and table -amenities. "Mr. Downman" would be a public benefactor if he would open a -School of Kitchen Wisdom where the little suburban wife might sit at his -feet and learn of him. Yes, I know that there are many schools of -cookery and housewifery, but these places are managed by people who -only know how to cook. "Mr. Downman" would bring to the task all those -little elegancies which make a dinner not merely satisfactory, but a -refinement of joy. Feeding, like all functions of the human body, is a -vulgar business anyway, but here is a man who can raise it to the -dignity of a rite. - -Further, he has shown us, in those "Bulletins," how to turn advertising -into one of the minor arts. Perhaps of all the enormities which the -nineteenth century perpetrated in its efforts to make life unbearable, -the greatest was the debasing of trade. In the eighteenth century trade -was a serene occupation, as you may see by glancing at the files of the -old _Gentleman's Magazine_, _Mirror_, _Spectator_, where announcements -of goods and merchandise were made in fine flowing English. -Advertisement was then a matter of grace, of flourish and address; for -people had leisure in which to receive gradual impressions. The -merchants of that day did not scream at you; they sat with you over the -fire, and held you in pleasant converse, sometimes, in their talk, -throwing off some persiflage or apothegm that has become immortal. There -was a Mr. George Farr, a grocer, _circa_ 1750, who issued some -excellent trade tickets from the "Beehive and Three Sugar Loaves"; -little cards, embellished with dainty woodcuts that bring to mind an -Elzevir bookplate; the pictures a sheer joy to look upon, the prose a -delicate pomp of words that delights the ear. Then there were the trade -cards of the Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' Company of the eighteenth -century, each one the production of a true artist (Hogarth did several), -as well as the tobacco advertisements of the same period. In the latter -case, not only were the cards works of art, but poetry was wooed and won -for the cause. Near the old Surrey Theatre lived one John Mackey, who -sang the praise of his wares in rhyme and issued playbills purporting to -announce new tragedies under such titles as _My Snuff-Box_, _The Indian -Weed_, _The True Friend, or Arrivals from Havannah_, _The Last Pinch_, -and so on. The cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century also found time -to indite delicious morsels of prose and prepare quaint and harmonious -pictures for the delight of their patrons. Mr. Chippendale and Mr. -Heppelwhite were most industrious in this direction, and the Society of -Upholsterers and Cabinet Makers issued, in 1765, a work now very much -sought after: _The Cabinet and Chair Makers' Real Friend and Companion_. - -But then, snorting and hustling like a provincial alderman, in came the -nineteenth century, with its gospel of Speed-up; and the result was that -fair fields and stately streets scream harshly in your ears at every -turn:-- - - - DRINK BINGO. - It is the Best. - - - EAT DINKYDUX. - You'll hate it at First. - - -This sort of thing continued for many decades, when, happily, its -potency became attenuated, and some genius discovered that people were -not always responsive to screams; that, after all, the old way was -better. - -Thus literature returned and linked arms once again with trade. Partly, -the circularizing dodge was responsible for this, since, in the -circular, the bald statement was hardly good enough. It was found that -subtle means must be employed if you are striving to catch a man's -attention at the breakfast-table, when sleep still crawls like a slug -about the brain and temper is uncertain. Nothing is so riling to the -educated person as to have ungrammatical circulars dropped in his -letter-box. Their effect is that he heartily detests the article -advertised, not because he has tried it and found it wanting, but -because of the split infinitive or the infirm phrase. So the whoop and -the yell gave place to the full-flowered essay sprigged with the -considered phrase. And to my mind the best of all contemporary efforts -in this direction are "Mr. Downman's" "Bulletins," of which I have a -complete set. Here a fastidious pen is delightfully employed; and not -the pen only, but the taste of the book-lover. Indeed, they are lovable -productions, having all the gracious response to the eye and the touch -of Mr. Arthur Humphreys' anthologies of seventeenth-century poetry. -Everything--format, type, paper, and Elian style--breathes an air of -serendipity. - -The first part of each "Bulletin" consists of a number of essays on -questions pertaining to wine and wine-drinking; the second half is a -catalogue of "Mr. Downman's" wines and their current prices, with -specimen labels, which are such gentle harmonies of line and colour that -one is tempted to start collecting them. "Mr. Downman" opens his -addresses in the grand manner:-- - - - _My Lords, Reverend Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen._ - - -And if you love your Elia, then you must read "Mr. Downman" on Decanters -and Decanting, On Corkscrews, On How to Drink Wine, On Bottling, On -Patriotism and Wines, On the Suiting of Food to Wine, On Wines at -Picnics. His sharp-flavoured prose, full of sly nuances and coquettish -conceits, has all the tone of the best claret. Hear him on salads:-- - - - This is the time of salads. And a good salad means good oil. It - also means good vinegar, or a fresh and juicy lime or lemon. Now - the Almighty has given us better tools for salad-making than any - wooden fork or spoon. In conditions of homely intimacy, a - salad-maker, when all is ready, will wash his hands well and long - as the moment approaches for serving the bowl. He will shun common - or perfumed soaps, and will use nothing but a soap made from olive - oil. Having dried his hands perfectly on a warm, clean towel, he - will finally whisk the cup of dressing into homogeneity, will pour - its contents over the salad, and will immediately proceed to wring - the leaves in the liquid as a washerwoman wrings clothes in soapy - water. (How horrid!) In doing this he will spoil the appearance of - come of the leaves, but he will have a salad fit for the gods. - - -After sampling a noble Madeira in his cellar cool, in William and Mary -Yard, we resumed our crawl, and in the black evening made a tour of -other of the old places. At the Café de l'Europe, Mr. Jacobs, leader of -the band, played for us a few old waltzes and morceaux reeking of the -spirit of 1912; but even he did not handle the fiddle, or seem to care -to handle it, in his old happy manner. Like the rest of us, I suppose, -he felt that it wasn't worth while; it didn't matter. We called at the -"Gambrinus," now owned by a Belgian; at the old "Sceptre," for a -coupon's worth of boiled beef; and so to the Café Royal. - -Here we received a touch or two from the old times. War has killed many -lovely things, but, though it maim and break, it cannot wholly kill the -things of the spirit, and in the "Royal" we found that art was still a -living thing; ideas were still being discussed as though they mattered. -Epstein and Augustus John, both in uniform, were there, and Austin -Harrison had his usual group of poets. It was reassuring to see the old -domino-playing Frenchmen, who seem part of the fixtures of the place, in -their accustomed corner. The girls seemed to have packed away their -affrighting futurist gowns, and were arrayed more soberly. That night -they seemed to be more like human creatures, and less like deliberate -Bohemians. - -I am not overfond of the Café Royal, but it is one of the West End shows -which visitors feel they must see; and when any provincial visitors -wonder: "Why is the Café Royal?" I have one answer for them: "Henri -Murger." - -It is certain that, but for Murger, there would be no Chelsea and no -Café Royal. That man has a lot to answer for. I doubt if any one man -(I'm not including kings) has wrought so much havoc in young lives. He -meant to warn youth of danger; he actually drove youth towards it. - -Any discussion which seeks to name the most dangerous book in the world -is certain to bring mention of Rousseau's _Confessions_, of Paine's _Age -of Reason_, of Artzibashef's _Sanine_, of Baudelaire's _Fleurs du Mal_, -and other works of subversive tendency. The one book which has really -done more harm to young people than any other is seldom remembered in -this connection. That book is _Scènes de la Vie de Bohême_; and it is -dangerous, not that it contains a line of obscenity or blasphemy, not -that it teaches evil as higher than good, but because it founded a cult -and taught young people how to ruin their lives. Bohemianism has, of -course, existed since the world began; rebels have always been; but it -remained for Murger to find a name for it and make a cult of it. - -The dangers of this cult to young people lay not in its being an evil -cult, but in its being perhaps as fine a cult as any of the world's -great creeds: the cult of human sympathy and generosity. The Bohemian -makes friends with all kinds and all creeds--sinners and saints, rich -and poor; he cares nothing so long as they be kindly. And there lay the -danger, for the blood of youth, freed from all restraint, was certain to -overdo it. It became a cult of excess. Murger died, but he left behind -him a very bitter legacy to the coming generation. As that legacy passed -through the years it gathered various adhesions--such as Wilde's "In -order to be an artist it is first necessary to ruin one's health," and -Flaubert's "Nothing succeeds like excess"; so that very soon art -colonies became things discredited, unpleasant to the nostrils of the -righteous. - -Murger himself saw the life very clearly, for he described it as "Vie -gai et terrible"; and he takes no pains to present to us only the -lighter, warmer side of it. He shows us everything; yet, so diabolical -is his manner, that, even after passing the tragedy of the closing -pages, the book and the life it pictures call to every one of us with -song in his blood and the spirit of April in his heart. - -It first appeared as a feuilleton in a Paris daily, and Murger, with -characteristic insouciance, wrote his instalments only a few hours -before the time when they were due for the printer; and when he was -stumped for material, he invented a little story. Hence that singularly -beautiful tale, slammed into the middle of the book--the Story of -Francine's Muff--which forms the opening scene of Puccini's opera -founded on the novel. The book has neither balance nor cohesion, and in -this it catches its note from its theme. It is a cinematographic -succession of scenes, tender and passionate and gay; swift and hectic. -He invented and employed the picture-palace manner in literature before -the picture-palace was even conceived. The very style is feverish, and -from it one visualizes the desperately merry Bohemian slaving with pen -and paper in his high garret, and whipping his flagging brain with -fierce stimulant, while the printer's boy sits on the doorstep. - -It stands alone. There is no book in the literature of the world quite -like it. It is the challenge of youth and beauty to the world; and if -we--grown wise and weary in the struggle--find a note of ferocity and -extravagance in the challenge, then let us judge with understanding, and -remember that it is a case of the fine and the weak against the brutal -and the ignorant. Murger's voice is the voice of protesting youth. He is -illogical; so is youth. He is furious; so is youth. He is heroic; so is -youth. He is half-mad with indignation and half-mad with the joy of -living; so is youth. It is by its very waywardness and disregard of -values that the book captures us. - -There is no other book in which the spirit of Paris breathes more -easily. Here we have the essential Paris, just as in Thomas Dekker we -have the essential London. Poets, novelists and essayists have set -themselves again and again to ensnare the elusive Paris between the -covers of a book; but Murger alone--though he writes of Paris in -1830--has succeeded. Those who have never been to Paris should first -read his book; then, when they do go, they will experience the sense of -coming back to some known place. - -It was this insidious book that first tempted youth to escape from a -hidebound world; showed it the way out--a way beset by delightful -hazards. It offered to all the golden boys and girls a new Utopia, and -they were fain to visit it. That it was a false world troubled them not -at all. The green glass, the delirious midnight hours, and the pale -loveliness of Mimi and Musette were, perhaps, shackles as binding and as -fearful as those of Convention. But anything to escape from the irk and -thrall of their narrow realities; so away they went, and the end of the -story is written in the archives of the Morgue. - -After seventy years, however, the middle way has been found. There are -few tragedies to-day in the Quartier Latin, and very little gaiety or -kindliness; none of the old adventurous spirit. Things are going too -well in the studio-world these days. Chelsea and Montmartre have been -invaded by the American dilettanti, whose lives are one long struggle to -be Bohemians on a thousand a year. If, however, there be those who -regard this state of things as an improvement on the old, then let it be -remembered that this way was only found after Murger had wrecked his own -life and the lives of those who followed so gaily the unkind path down -which he led them. It is a pitiful catalogue; the more pitiful since so -many of the young dead are anonymous--the young men who might, had they -lived, have given the world so much of beauty, but who were unable to -pull up short of the precipice. Some of them, of course, we know: Gerard -de Nerval, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Ernest Dowson; and -their London monument is the Café Royal. - - * * * * * - -At half-past nine all fun ceased, but we had picked up a bunch from -Fleet Street, one of whom was taking home two bottles of whisky. So we -moved to "another place," and ordered black coffees which drank -tolerably well--after some swift surreptitious business with a -corkscrew. Later, we strolled across Oxford Street to what remained of -the German Quarter. We visited various coffee-bars, where our genial -comrade with the bottles again did his duty; did it beautifully, did it -splendidly, did it with Vine Street at his ear. And in a grey street off -Tottenham Court Road we found a poor man's cabaret. In the back room of -a coffee-bar an entertainment was proceeding. Two schonk boys, in straw -hats, were at a piano, assisted by an anæmic girl and a real coal-black -coon, who gave us the essential rag-times of the South. The place was -packed with the finest collection of cosmopolitan toughs I had ever seen -in one room. The air, physical and moral, was hardly breathable, and as -the boys were spoiling for a row, one misinterpreted glance would have -brought trouble--and lots of it. At different tables, voices were raised -in altercation, when not in lusty song, and the general impression the -place gave me was that it was a squalid, dirty model of the old -Criterion Long Bar. All the meaner, more desperate citizens of the -law-breaking world were gathered here; and, though we had broken a few -by-laws ourselves that night, we were not anxious to be led into any -more shattering of the Doraic tables. So at midnight we adjourned to -"another place," and drank dry gingers until three o'clock in the -morning. Then, to a Turkish Bath, and so to bed; not very merry, but as -cheered in the spirit as the humble, useless citizen is allowed to be in -a miserable, hole-and-corner way in war-time. - -It had been a sorry experience, this round of visits, in 1917, to -quarters last seen in 1914; and it made me curious to know how other -familiar nooks had received the wanton assault of kings. In the -haphazard sketches that follow I have tried to catch the external -war-time atmosphere of a few of the old haunts, so far as a poor -reporter may. Later, perhaps, a better hand than mine will discover for -us the essential soul of London under siege; and these rough notes may -be of some service, since all remembrance of that time was blown away -from most minds by the maroons of Armistice Day. - - - - -BACK TO DOCKLAND - - -From my earliest perceiving moments, docks and railway stations have -been, for me, the most romantic spots of the city in which I was born -and bred. Quays and wharves, cuts, basins, reaches, steel tracks and -passenger trains, and all that belonged to the life of the waterside and -the railway, spoke to me of illimitable travel and distant, therefore -desirable, things. - -This feeling I share, I suppose, with millions of other men and children -who have been reared in coast cities, and whose minds respond to the -large invitations offered by sooty smoke-stacks or the dim outline of a -station roof. And if these things pierced the complacence of one's days -in the past, how much deeper and more significant their message in those -four dreadful years, when men fared forth in ships and trains to new -perils unimagined in the quieter years. - -That apart, I see docks and railway stations not in their economic or -historic aspect, but in the picturesque light, as, perhaps, the most -emphatic glory of London. For London's major architectural beauties I -care little. Abbeys, cathedrals, old churches, museums, leave me cold; -the fine shudder about the shoulders I suffer most sharply before those -haphazard wizardries of brick and iron flung together by the exigencies -of modern commerce. Their fortuitous ugliness achieves a new beauty. A -random eye-full of such townscapes may yield only an impression of -squalor, but many acres of squalor produce, by their very vastness, -something of the sublime. Belching chimneys, flaring furnaces, the -solemn smell of wet coal mingled with that of tar and bilge-water, and -the sight of brown sails and surly funnels and swinging cranes--in these -misshapen masses I find that delight that others receive from -contemplation of Salisbury Cathedral or a spire of Wren's. - -The docks of London lie closely in a group--Wapping, Shadwell, -Rotherhithe, Poplar, Limehouse, Isle of Dogs, Blackwall, and North -Woolwich, and each possesses its own fine-flavoured character. You may -know at once, without other evidence than that afforded by the sense of -smell, whether you stand in London Docks, Surrey Commercial Docks, West -India Docks, Millwall Docks, or Victoria and Albert Docks. To me, the -West and East India Docks are soaked in the bright odour and placid -clamour of the East, with something of feminine allure in the quality of -their appeal. Victoria and Albert Docks I find gaunt and colourless. -Surrey Commercial Docks remind me of some coarse merchant from the Royal -Exchange, stupidly vulgar in speech, clothes and character. - -The East and West India Docks I have treated elsewhere. Of the others, -the most exciting are Millwall and London Docks--though of the latter I -fear one must now speak in the past tense. Shadwell High Street and St. -George's, which border the London Docks, are no longer themselves. All -is now charged with gloom, broken only by the anæmic lights of a few -miserable mission-halls and coffee-bars for the use of Scandinavian -seamen. Awhile back, before this monstrous jest of war, there was a -certain raw gaiety about the place brought thither by these same blond -vikings; but, since the frenetic agitations of certain timorous people -against "all aliens"--as though none but an alien can be a spy--these -men are not now allowed to land from their boats, and Shadwell is the -poorer of a touch of colour. One might often meet them and fraternize -with them in the coffee-bars and beer-shops (there are few -"public-houses" in these streets), and hear their view of things. -Bearded giants they were, absurdly out of the picture in these tiny, -sawdusted rooms, against the hideous bedizenment of the London house of -refreshment. They would engage in rich, confused, interminable -conversations, using a language which, to the stranger, sounded like a -medley of hiccoughs and snorts; and there would be vehement arguments -and a large fanning of the breeze. In the upper rooms, on Saturday -evenings, one might have singing and dancing to a cracked piano and a -superannuated banjo, and there the girls of the quarter would appear, -and would do themselves well on seafarers' hospitality. - -But the free-and-easy atmosphere is gone. You enter any bar and are at -once under a cloud. Suspicion has been bred in all these docks men by -the cheap Press. The patriotic stevedores regard you as a disguised -alien. The landlord wonders whether you are one of those blasted -newspaper men or are from the Yard. The visitors to the bars are in -every case insipid; none of the ripe character that once lit such places -to sudden life. Abrupt acquaintance and casual conversation are not to -be had. The beer is filthy. The good Burton is gone, and in its place -you have a foul concoction which has not the mellowing effect of honest -British beer or the exhilarating effect of the light continental brews. -Shadwell High Street is now a dirty lane of poor lodging-houses, foul -courts, waste tracts of land, mission halls exuding a stale air of -diseased hospitality, and those nondescript establishments, ships' -chandlers, with their miscellanies of apparently useless lumber, stored -in such a heap that it would seem impossible to find any article -immediately required. In short, social life here is as it should be, -according to the unwearied in war-work. - -Still, there are some adorable morsels of domestic architecture to be -found up narrow alleys: old cottages and tumbling buildings, mellowed by -centuries of association with many weathers and with men and ships from -the green and golden seas that lie beyond the muddy waters of London -River; and these supply one touch of animation to the prevailing -moribundity. - -Very different are the Millwall Docks. Little material beauty here, but -something much better--good company, and plenty of it. The docks lie at -the south of the Isle of Dogs, amid a flat stretch of dreary warehouses -and factories, and you approach them by a long curving street of poor -cottages and "general" shops. The island is a place of harsh discords, -for Cubitt's works are established here, and the ring of hammers rises -above the roar of furnaces, and the vociferous life of the canals above -the scream of the siren and the moan of the hooter, and the concerted -voices of the island seem to cry the accumulated agony of the East End. -Great arc lights, suspended from above, when cargoes are being unloaded -by night, fling into sudden illumination or shadow the faces and figures -of the groups of workers as they stagger up the gangways with their -loads, and lend to the whole scene an air of theatrical illusion. In the -bars you find sweaty engineers and grimy stokers. Here is a prolific -field of character; mostly British, though a few Lascars may be found, -drinking solitary drinks or parading the streets with their customary -air of bewilderment. Here are nut-brown toilers of the sea, whose -complexions suggest that they have been trapped by that advertiser in -the popular Press who offers his toilet wares with the oracular -pronouncement that "Handsome Men Are Slightly Sunburnt." Here are men -who have circled the seven seas. Here, calm and taciturn, is a man who -knows Pitcairn Islanders to speak to; who produces from one pocket a -carved ivory god, presented to him by some native of Java, and from the -other Old Timothy's One-Horse Snip for the Big Race. - -Under the meagre daylight and the opulent shadows of these docks you may -drink beer and listen to casual chit-chat that carries you round the -world and into magical hidden places, and brings you back with a jerk to -the Isle of Dogs. - -"Yerce. Two bob a pound the 'Ome an' Colonial was arstin' the missus for -the stuff. I soon went round an' told 'em where they could put it. Well, -'sI was sayin', after we left Rangoon, we----" - -The land in this district consists, for the most part, of oozing marsh, -so that, when a gale sweeps from the mouth of the river, it reaches the -island with unexpended force. Then the sky seems to scream in harmony -with the rattling windows. Saloon signs swing grotesquely. The river -assumes a steely hue, heaving and rushing, sucking against staples, -wharves and barges, and rising in ineffectual splashes against the gates -of the docks, until you seek the public bar of the "Dog and -Thunderstorm" as a sanctuary. There, amid the babble of pewter and glass -and the punctuation of the cash register, you forget any London gale in -listening to stories of typhoons, cyclones, and other freaks of the -elements common to the Pacific and the meeting of the waters round the -Horn. - -Many hours have I squandered on the ridiculous bridge of the Isle of -Dogs, in sunlight or twilight, grey mist or velvet darkness, building my -dreams about the boats as they dropped downstream to the oceans of the -world and their ports with honey-syllabled names--Swatow, Rangoon, -Manila, Mozambique, Amoy--returning in normal times, with fantastic -cargoes of cornelian and jade, malachite and onyx, fine shapes of ivory -and coral, sharp spices of betel-nut and bhang, and a secret tin or two -of li-un--perhaps not returning at all. There I would stand, giving to -each ship some name and destination born of my own fancy, and endowing -it with a marvellous meed of adventure. - -It is an exciting experience for the landsman Cockney, strolling the -streets about the docks, to rub shoulders with other little Cockneys, in -blue serge and cotton scarves, who have accepted the non-committal -invitation offered by the funnel and the rigging over the walls of -Limehouse Basin. One remembers the story of the pale curate at the -church concert, at which one of the entertainers had sung a setting of -Kipling's "Rolling Down to Rio." "Ah, God!" he said, wringing his thin -hands, "that's what I often feel like.... Rolling down to Rio." And in -these streets one meets insignificant little men who have done it; who -have rolled down to Rio and gone back to Mandalay, and seen the dawn -come up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay. - -And I am proud to have nodding acquaintance with them. I am glad they -have drunk beer with me. I am glad I have clicked the chopsticks in -Limehouse Causeway with the yellow boys who can talk of Canton and Siam -and North Borneo and San Francisco. I am glad I have salaamed noble men -of India at the Asiatics' Home, and heard their stories of odourous -villages in the hills and of the seas about India, and of strange -islands which mere Cockneys pick out on the map with an uncertain -forefinger--Andamans, Nicobars, Solomons, and so forth. I am glad from -having met men who know Java as I know London; who know the best places -in Tokio for tea and the most picturesque spots in Formosa; who can -direct me to a good hotel in Singapore, should I ever go there, and who -know where Irish whisky can be bought in Sarawak. Why study guidebooks, -or consult with the omniscient Mr. Cook, when you may find about the -great ornamental gates of the docks of London natives of all corners of -the world who can provide you with a hundred exclusive tips which will -make smooth the traveller's way over every obstacle or untoward -incident? Indeed, why travel at all, when you may travel by proxy; when, -by hanging round the docks of London, you may travel, on the lips of -these men, through jungle, ocean, white town, palm grove, desert island, -and suffer all the sharp sensations of standing silent upon a peak in -Darien, the while you are taking heartening draughts of mild and bitter -in the saloon bar of the "Star of the East"? - - - - -CHINATOWN REVISITED - - -"Chinatown, my Chinatown, where the lights are low"--a fragment of a -music-hall song in praise of Chinatown which sticks ironically in my -memory. The fact that the lights are low applies at the time of writing -to the whole of London; and as for the word "Chinatown," which once -carried a perfume of delight, it is now empty of meaning save as -indicating a district of London where Chinamen live. To-day Limehouse is -without salt or savour; flat and unprofitable; and of all that it once -held of colour and mystery and the macabre, one must write in the past -tense. The missionaries and the Defence of the Realm Act have together -stripped it of all that furtive adventure that formerly held such lure -for the Westerner. - -It was in 1917 that I returned to it, after an absence of some years. In -that year I received an invitation that is rightly accepted as a -compliment: I was asked by Alvin Langdon Coburn to meet him at his -studio, and let him make from my face one of those ecstatic muddles of -grey and brown that have won for him the world's acknowledgment as the -first artist of the camera. Our meeting discovered a mutual enthusiasm -for Limehouse, and we arranged an excursion. There, we said to -ourselves, we shall find yet a taste of the pleasant things that the -world has forgotten: soft movement, solitude, little courtesies, as well -as wonderful things to buy. There we shall find sharp-flavoured things -to eat and drink, and josses and chaste carvings, and sharp knives. Oh, -and the tea, too--the little two-ounce packets of suey-sen at -sevenpence, that clothe the hour of five o'clock with delicate scents -and dreams. - -But the suey-sen was gone, done to death by the tea-rationing order. -Gone, too, was the bland iniquity of the place. Our saunter through -Pennyfields and the Causeway was a succession of disillusions. The -spirit of the commercial and controlled West breathed on us from every -side. All the dusky delicacies were suppressed. Dora had stepped in and -khyboshed the little haunts that once invited to curious amusement. -Opium, li-un, and other essences of the white poppy, secretly hoarded, -were fetching £30 per pound. The hop-hoads had got it in the neck, and -the odour of gin-seng floated seldom upon the air. The old tong feuds -had been suppressed by stern policing, and Thames Police Court had -become almost as suave and seemly as Rumpelmayer's. Even that joyous -festival, the Feast of the Lanterns, kept at the Chinese New Year, had -fallen out of the calendar. The Asiatic seamen had been made good by an -Order in Council. All for the best, no doubt; yet how one missed the -bizarre flame and salt of the old Quarter. - -We found Pennyfields and the Causeway uncomfortably crowded, for the -outward mail sailings were reduced, and the men who landed in the early -days had been unable to get away. So the streets and lodging-houses were -thronged with Arabs, Malays, Hindoos, South Sea Islanders, and East -Africans; and the Asiatics' Home for Destitute Orientals was having the -time of its life. Every cubicle in the hotel was engaged, and many -wanderers were sleeping where they could. Those with money paid for -their accommodation; for the others, a small grant from the India Office -secured them board and bed until such time as proper arrangements could -be made. The kitchens were working overtime, for each race or creed has -its own inexorable laws in the matter of food. Some eat this and some -eat that, and others will eat anything--save pork--provided that prayers -are spoken over it by an appointed priest. - -At half-past nine an occasional tipsy Malay might be seen about the -streets, but the old riots and mêlées were things of the past. In the -little public-house at the corner of Pennyfields we found the usual -crowd of Chinks and white girls, and the electric piano was gurgling its -old sorry melodies, and beer and whisky were flowing; but the whole -thing was very decorous and war-timish. - -We did, however, find one splash of colour. A new and very gaudy -restaurant had lately been opened in a narrow by-street, and here we -took a meal of noodle, chow-chow and awabi, and some tea that was a -mocking echo of the old suey-sen. The room was crowded with yellow boys -and a few white girls. Suddenly, from a corner table, occupied by two of -the ladies, came a sharp stir. A few heated words rattled on the air, -and then one rose, caught the other a resounding biff in the neck, and -screamed at her:-- - -"You dare say I'm not respectable! I _am_ respectable. I come from -Manchester." - -This evidence the assaulted one refused to regard as final. She rose, -reached over the table, and clawed madly at her opponent's face and -clothes. Then they broke from the table, and fought, and fell, and -screamed, and delivered the hideous animal noises made by those who see -red. At once the place boiled. I've never been in a Chinese rebellion, -but if the clamour and the antics of the twenty or so yellow boys in -that café be taken as a faint record of such an affair, it is a good -thing for the sensitive to be out of. To the corner dashed waiters and -some customers, and there they rolled one another to the floor in their -efforts to separate the girls, while others stood about and screamed -advice in the various dialects of the Celestial Empire. At last the -girls were torn apart, and struggled insanely in half a dozen grips as -they hurled inspired thoughts at one another, or returned to the old -chorus of "Dirty prostitute." "I ain't a prostitute. I come from -Manchester. Lemme gettater." - -And with a final wrench the respectable one did get at her. She broke -away, turned to a table, and with three swift gestures flung cup, saucer -and sauce-boat into the face of her traducer. That finished it. The -proprietor had stood aloof while the girls tore each other's faces and -bit at uncovered breasts. But the sight of his broken crockery acted as -a remover of gravity. He dashed down the steps, pushed aside assistants -and advisers, grabbed the nearest girl--the respectable one--round the -waist, wrestled her to the top of the marble stairs that lead from the -door to the upper restaurant, and then, with a sharp knee-kick, sent her -headlong to the bottom, where she lay quiet. - -Whereupon her opponent crashed across a table in hysterics, kicking, -moaning, laughing and sobbing: "You've killed 'er--yeh beast. You've -killed 'er. She's my pal. Oo. Oo. Oooooowh!" - -This lasted about a minute. Then, suddenly, she arose, pulled herself -together, ran madly down the stairs, picked up her pal, and staggered -with her to the street. At once, without a word of comment, the company -returned placidly to its eating and drinking; and this affair--an event -in the otherwise dull life of Limehouse--was over. - -Years ago, such affairs were of daily occurrence, and the West India -Dock Road became a legend to frighten children with at night. But the -times change. Chinatown is a back number, and there now remains no -corner to which one may take the curious visitor thirsting for exotic -excitement--unless it be the wilds of Tottenham. - -The Chinatown of New York, too, has become respectable. The founder of -that colony, Old Nick, died recently, in miserable circumstances, after -having acquired thousands of dollars by his enterprise. From the high -estate of Founder of the Chinatown he dropped to the position of -panhandler, swinging on the ears of his compatriots. About forty years -ago, when Mott Street, Pell Street, and Doyers Street were the territory -of the Whyos, the Bowery boys and the Dead Rabbits, Old Nick crept -stealthily into a small corner. He started a cigar-store in Mott Street, -making his own cigars. He was honest, thrifty, and possessed a lust for -work. The cigar-store prospered, and soon, feeling lonely, as the only -Chink among so many white boys, he passed the word to his countrymen -about the big spenders of the district. On his advice, they closed their -laundries and came to live alongside, to get their pickings from the -dollars that were flying about. Chinatown was started, and rapidly -developed, and its atmosphere was sedulously "arranged" for the benefit -of conducted tourists from uptown, and the tables rattled with the dice -and fluttered with the cards. This success was the beginning of Old -Nick's failure. At the tables he lost all: his capital, his store, his -home, and his proud position. For a time he managed to survive in fair -circumstances; but soon the hatchet men became too numerous, and their -tong feuds too deadly, and their gambling tricks too notorious. Police -raids and the firm hand of the higher Chinese merchants put a stop to -the prosperity of Chinatown, and soon it fell away to nothing, and Old -Nick passed his last days on the sporadic charity of a white woman whom -he had in happier days befriended. - -And to-day Pell Street and Mott Street are as quiet and virtuous as -Pennyfields and the Causeway. Coburn and I left the old waterside -streets with feelings of dismay, tasting ashes in the mouth. We tried to -draw from an old storekeeper, a topside good-fella chap, some expression -of his own attitude to present conditions, but with his usual -impassivity he passed it over. How could this utterly debased and -miserable one who dares to stand before noble and refined ones from -Office of Printed Leaves, who have honoured his totally inadequate -establishment with symmetrical presences, presume to offer to exalted -intelligences utterly insignificant thoughts that find lodging in -despicable breast? - -Clearly he was handing us the lemon, so we took it, and departed for the -more reckless joys of Hammersmith, where Coburn has his home. On the -journey back I remembered the drabness we had just left, and then I -remembered Limehouse as it was--a pool of Eastern filth and metropolitan -squalor; a place where unhappy Lascars, discharged from ships they were -only too glad to leave, were at once the prey of rascally lodging-house -keepers, mostly English, who fleeced them over the fan-tan tables and -then slung them to the dark alleys of the docks. A wicked place; yes, -but colourful. - -Listen to the following: two extracts from an East End paper of thirty -years back:-- - - - THAMES POLICE COURT. - - John Lyons, who keeps a common lodging-house, which he has - neglected to register, appeared before Mr. Ingram in answer to a - summons taken out by Inspector Price. J. Kirby, 53A, inspector of - common lodging-houses, stated that on Saturday night last he - visited defendant's house, which was in a most filthy and - dilapidated condition. In the first floor he found a Chinaman - sleeping in a cupboard or small closet, filled with cobwebs. The - wretched creature was without a shirt, and was covered with a few - rags. The Chinaman was apparently in a dying state, and has since - expired. An inquest was held on his remains, and it was proved he - died of fever, and had been most grossly neglected. The room in - which the Chinaman lay was without bedding or furniture. In the - second room he found Aby Callighan, an Irishwoman, who said she - paid 1s. 6d. a week rent. In the third room was Abdallah, a Lascar, - who said he paid 3s. per week, and a Chinaman squatting on a chair - smoking. In the fourth room was Dong Yoke, a Chinaman, who said he - paid 2s. 6d. per week for the privilege of sleeping on the bare - boards; two Lascars on bedsteads smoking opium, and the dead body - of a Lascar lying on the floor, and covered with an old rug. In the - fifth room was an Asiatic seaman, named Peru, who said he paid 3s. - per week, and eleven other Lascars, six of whom were sleeping on - bedsteads, three on the floor, and two on chairs. If the house were - registered, only four persons would be allowed in the room. The - effluvium, caused by smoking opium and the over-crowded state of - the room, was most nauseous and intolerable. In the kitchen, which - was very damp, he found Sedgoo, who said he had to pay 2s. a week, - and eight Chinamen huddled together. The stench here was very bad. - If the house were registered, no one would have been allowed to - inhabit the kitchen at all. He should say the house was quite unfit - for a human habitation. The floors of the rooms, the stairs and - passages were in a filthy and dilapidated condition, covered with - slime, dirt, and all kinds of odious substances. - - The men had been hung up with weights tied to their feet; flogged - with a rope; pork, the horror of the Mohammedan, served out to them - to eat, and the insult carried further by violently ramming the - tail of a pig into their mouths and twisting the entrails of the - pig round their necks; they were forced up aloft at the point of - the bayonet, and a shirt all gory with Lascar blood was exhibited - on the trial, and all this proved in evidence. One man leaped - overboard to escape his tormentor; a boat was about to be lowered - to save the drowning man, but it was prohibited, and he was left to - perish. The captain escaped out of the country, forfeiting his bail - and abandoning his ship, leaving his chief officer to be brought - to trial and to undergo punishment for his share of this cruel - transaction. - - -In those days you might stand in West India Dock Road, on a June -evening, in a dusk of blue and silver, the air heavy with the reek of -betel nut, chandu and fried fish; the cottages stewing themselves in -their viscid heat. Against the skyline rose Limehouse Church, one of the -architectural beauties of London. Yellow men and brown ambled about you, -and a melancholy guitar tinkled a melody of lost years. Then, were -colour and movement; the whisper of slippered feet; the adventurous -uncertainty of shadow; heavy mist, which never lifts from Poplar and -Limehouse; strange voices creeping from nowhere; and occasionally the -rasp of a gramophone delivering records of interminable Chinese dramas. -The soul of the Orient wove its spell about you, until, into this -evanescent atmosphere, came a Salvation Army chorus bawling a lot of -emphatic stuff about glory and blood, or an organ with "It ain't all -lavender!" and at once the clamour and reek of the place caught you. - -Thirty years ago--that was its time of roses. Then, indeed, things did -happen: things so strong that the perfume of them lingers to this day, -and one can, remembering them, sometimes sympathize with those who say -"LIMEHOUSE" in tones of terror. One of my earliest memories is of the -West India Dock Road on a wet November afternoon. A fight was on between -a Chink and a Malay. The Chink used a knife in an upward direction, -forcefully. The Malay got the Chink down, and jumped with heavy boots on -the bleeding yellow face. - -Some time ago, when my ways were cast in that district, the boys would -loaf at a kind of semi-private music-hall, attached to a public-house, -where one of the Westernized Chinks, a San Sam Phung, led the band, and -freely admitted all friends who bought him drinks. Every night he -climbed to his chair, and his yellow face rose like a November sun over -the orchestra-rail. When the conductor's tap turned on the flow of the -dozen instruments, which blared rag-tag music, we shifted to the -babbling bar and tried to be amused by the show. It was the dustiest -thing in entertainment that you can imagine. To this day the hall stinks -of snarling song. Dusty jokes we had, dusty music, dusty dresses, dusty -girls to wear them, or take them off; and only the flogging of cheap -whisky to carry us through the evening. Solemn smokes of cut plug and -indifferent cigar swirled in a haze of lilac, and over the opiate air -San's fiddle would wail, surging up to the balcony's rim and the cloud -of corpse faces that swam above it. More and more mephitic the air would -grow, and noisier would become voice and foot and glass; until, with a -burst of lights, and the roar of the chord-off from the band, the end -would come, and we would tumble out into the great road where were the -winking river, and keen air and sanity. - -Later, the boys would shuffle along with San Sam Phung to his lodging -over a waterside wine-shop, crossing the crazy bridge into the Isle of -Dogs. Often, passing at midnight, you might have heard his heart-song -trickling from an open window. He cared only for the modern, Italianate -stuff, and would play it for hours at a time. Seated in the orchestra, -in his second-hand dress-suit and well-oiled hair, he looked about as -picturesque as a Bayswater boarding-house. But you should have seen him -afterwards, during the day, in his one-room establishment, radiant in -spangled dressing-gown and tempestuous hair, a cigarette at his lips, -his fiddle at his chin. It was worth sitting up late for. Then his face -would shine, if ever a Chink's can, and his bow would tear the soul -from the fiddle in a fury of lyricism. - -Half his room was filled with a stove, which thrust a long neck of -piping ten feet in the wrong direction, and then swerved impulsively to -the window. In the corner was a joss. The rest of the room was littered -with fiddles and music. Over the stove hung a gaudy view of Amoy. He -never tired of talking of Amoy, his home. He longed to get back to -it--to flowers, blue waters, white towns. He lived only for the moment -when he might tuck his fiddle-case under his arm and return to Amoy, -home and beauty. Once started on the tawdry ribaldry which he had to -play at the hall, his arm and fingers following mechanically the sheet -before him, he would set his fancies free, and, like a flock of -rose-winged birds, they took flight to Amoy. Music, for him, was just -melody--the graceful surface of things; in a word Amoy. Often he -confessed to a terrible fear that he would grow old and die among our -swart streets ere he could save enough to return. And he did. Full of -the poppy one dark night, he stepped over the edge of a wharf at -Millwall. Then, at the inquiry, it was discovered that his nostalgia for -Amoy was pure fake. He had never been there. He was born on a boat that -crawled up-river one foggy morning, and had never for a day gone out of -London. - -There were many other delightful creatures of Limehouse whose names lie -persistently on the memory. There was Afong, a chimpanzee who ran a -pen-yen joint. There was Chinese Emma, in whose establishment one could -go "sleigh-riding." There was Shaik Boxhoo, a gentleman who did -unpleasant things, and finally got religion and other advantages over -his less wily brothers, who got only the jug. Faults they had in plenty, -these throwbacks, but their faults were original. Every one of them was -a bit of sharp-flavoured character, individual and distinct. - -In those days there was a waste patch of wan grass, called The Gardens, -near the Quarter, and something like a band performed there once a week. -O Carnival, Carnival! There the local crowd would go, and there, to the -music of dear Verdi, light feet would clatter about the asphalt walk, -and there would happen what happens every Sunday night in those parts of -London where are parks, promenades, bandstands and monkeys' parades. In -the hot spangled dusk, the groups of girls, brave with best frocks and -daring ribbons, would fling their love and their laughter to all who -would have them. Through the plaintive music--poor Verdi! how like a -wheezy music-box his crinoline melodies sounded, even then!--would swim -little ripples of laughter when the girls were caressing or being -caressed; and always the lisp of feet and the whisk of darling frocks -kissing little black shoes. - -Near by was the old "Royal Sovereign," which had a skittle-alley. There -would gather the lousy Lascars, and there they would roll, bowl or -pitch. Then they would swill. Later, they would roll, bowl or pitch, -with a skinful of gin, through the reeling streets to whichever boat -might claim them. - -The black Lascars, unlike their yellow mates, are mostly disagreeable -people. There was, in those days, but one of them who even approached -affability. He was something of a Limehouse Wonder, for, in a sudden -fight over spilt beer, he showed amazing aptitude not only with his -fists, but also in ringcraft. Chuck Lightfoot, a local sport, happened -to see him, and took him in hand, and for some years he stayed in -Shadwell, putting one after another of the local lads to sleep. He -finished his ring career in a dockside saloon by knocking out an -offending white man who had chipped him about his colour. It was a foul -blow, and the man died. Pennyfields Polly got twelve months, and when he -came out he started on the poppy and the snow, for he was not allowed to -fight again, and life held nothing else for him. His friends tried to -dissuade him, on the ground that he was ruining his health--a sensible -argument to put to a man who had no interest in life; they might as well -have told an Arctic explorer, who had lost the trail, that his tie was -creeping up the back of his neck. - -It is curious how the boys cling to you after a brief interchange of -hospitalities. You drop into a beer-shack one evening, and you are sure -to find a friend. One makes so easily in these parts a connection, -salutations, fugitive intimacy. You are suddenly saluted, it may be by -that good old friend, Mr. Lo, the poor Indian, or John Sam Ling Lee. -Vaguely you recall the name. Yes; you stood him a drink, some ten years -ago. Where has he been? Oh, he found a boat ... went round the Horn ... -stranded at Lima ... been in Cuba some time ... got to Swatow later ... -might stay in London ... might get a boat on Saturday. - -But these casual encounters are now hardly to be had. So many boys, so -many places have disappeared. Blue Gate Fields, scene of many an Asiatic -demonism, is gone. The "Royal Sovereign"--the _old_ "Royal -Sovereign"--is gone, and the Home for Asiatics reigns in its stead. The -hop-shacks about the Poplar arches and the closed courtyards and their -one-story cottages are no more. To-day--as I have said three times -already; stop me if I say it again--the glamorous shame of Chinatown has -departed. Nothing remains save tradition, which now and then is fanned -into life by such a case as that of the drugged actress. Yet you may -still find people who journey fearfully to Limehouse, and spend money in -its shops and restaurants, and suffer their self-manufactured -excitements while sojourning in its somnolent streets among the -respectable sons of Canton. The boys will not thank me for robbing them -of the soft marks who pay twenty shillings for a jade bangle, of the -kind sold in a sixpenny-halfpenny bazaar; so, anticipating their -celestial disapproval, this miserable prostrates himself and remains -bowed for their gracious pardon, and begs to be permitted to say that -the entirely inadequate benedictions of this one will be upon them until -the waning of the last moon. - - - - -SOHO CARRIES ON - - -Soho! Soho! - -Joyous syllables, in early times expressive of the delights of the -chase, and even to-day carrying an echo of nights of festivity, though -an echo only. How many thousand of provincials, seeing London, have been -drawn to those odourous byways that thrust themselves so briskly through -the staid pleasure-land of the West End--Greek Street, Frith Street, -Dean Street, Old Compton Street: a series of interjections breaking a -dull paragraph--where they might catch the true Latin temper and bear -away to the smoking-rooms of country Conservative clubs fulsome tales -that have made Soho already a legend. Indeed, I know one cautious lad -from Yorkshire, whose creed is that You Never Know and You Can't Be Too -Careful, who always furnishes himself with a loaded revolver when dining -with a town friend in Soho. I am not one to look sourly upon the simple -pleasures of the poor; I do not begrudge him his concocted dish of -thrills. I only mention this trick of his because it proves again the -strange resurrective powers of an oft-buried lie. You may sweep, you may -garnish Soho if you will; but the scent of adventure will hang round it -still. - -But to-day the scent is very faint. The streets that once rang with -laughter and prodigal talk are in A.D. 1917 charged with gloom; their -gentle noise is pitched in the minor key. These morsels of the South, -shovelled into the swart melancholies of central London, have lost their -happy summer tone. Charing Cross Road was always a streak of misery, -but, on the most leaden day, its side streets gave an impression of -light. Lord knows whence came the light. Not from the skies. Perhaps -from the indolently vivacious loungers; perhaps from the flower-boxes on -the window-sills, or the variegated shops bowered with pendant polonies, -in rainbow wrappings of tinfoil, and flasks of Chianti. One always -walked down Old Compton Street with a lilt, as to some carnival tune. -Nothing mattered. There were macaroni and spaghetti to eat, and Chianti -to drink; dishes of ravioli; cigars at a halfpenny a time and cigarettes -at six a penny; copies of frivolous comic-papers; and delicate glasses -of lire, a liqueur that carried you at the first sip to the green-hued -Mediterranean. The very smell of the place was the smell of those -lovable little towns of the Midi. - -But all is now changed. Gone are the shilling tables-d'hôte and their -ravishing dishes. Gone is the pint of vin ordinaire at tenpence. Will -they ever come again, those gigantic, lamp-lit evenings, those Homeric -bob's-worths of hors-d'oeuvre, soup, omelette, chicken, cheese and -coffee? Shall we ever again cross Oxford Street to the old German -Quarter and drink their excellent Pilsener and Munchner, in heartening -steins, and eat their leber-wurst sandwiches, and smoke their long, thin -cigars? Or seat ourselves in the Schweitzerhof, where four wonderful -dishes were placed before you at a cost of tenpence by some dastard spy, -in the pay of that invisible-cloak artist, the English Bolo?--who -doubtless reported to Berlin our conversation about Phyllis Monkman's -hair and Billy Merson's technique. Nay, I think not. The blight of -civilization is upon Soho. Many once cosy and memorable cafés are -closed. Other places have altered their note and become uncomfortably -English; while those that retain their atmosphere and their customers -have considerably changed their menu and cuisine. One-and-ninepence is -the lowest charge for a table-d'hôte--and pretty poor hunting at that. -The old elaborate half-crown dinners are now less elaborate and cost -four shillings. And the wine-lists--well, wouldn't they knock poor Omar -off his perch? I don't know who bought Omar's drinks, or whether he paid -for his own, but if he lived in Soho to-day he'd have a pretty thin time -either way--unless the factory price for tents had increased in -proportion with other things. - -Gone, too, is the delicious atmosphere of _laisser-faire_ that made Soho -a refreshment of the soul for the visitors from Streatham and Ealing. -Soho's patrons to-day have a furtive, guilty look about them. You see, -they are trying to be happy in war-time. No more do you see in the cafés -the cold-eyed anarchists and the petty bourgeois and artisans from the -foreign warehouses of the locality. In their place are heavy-eyed women, -placid and monosyllabic, and much khaki and horizon blue. Many of the -British soldiers, officers and privates, are men who have not yet been -out, and are experimenting with their French among the French girls who -have taken the places of the swift-footed, gestic Luigi, François or -Alphonse; others have come from France, where they have discovered the -piquancy of French cooking, and desire no more the solidities of the -"old English" chop-house. - -Over all is an atmosphere of restraint. Gone are the furious argument -and the preposterous accord. Gone are the colour and the loud lights and -the evening noise. Soho is marking time, until the good days return--if -ever. Not in 1917 do you see Old Compton Street as a line of warm and -fragrant café-windows; instead, you stumble drunkenly through a dim, -murky lane, and take your chance by pushing the first black door that -exudes a smell of food. Gone, too, are those exotic foods that brought -such zest to the jaded palate. The macaroni and spaghetti now being -manufactured in London are poor substitutes for the real thing, being -served in long, flat strips instead of in the graceful pipe form of -other days. Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Gruyère, Port Salut, Strachini -and other enchanting cheeses are unobtainable; and you may cry in vain -for edible snails and the savoury stew of frogs' legs. True, the Chinese -café in Regent Street can furnish for the adventurous stomach such -trifles as black eggs (guaranteed thirty years old), sharks' fins at -seven shillings a portion, stewed seaweed, bamboo shoots, and sweet -birds'-nests; but Regent Street is beyond the bounds of Soho. - -Nevertheless, if you attend carefully, and if you are lucky, you may -still catch in Old Compton Street a faint echo of its graces and -picturesque melancholy. You may still see and hear the sombre Yid, the -furious Italian, the yodelling Swiss, and the deprecating French, -hanging about the dozen or so coffee-bars that have appeared since 1914. -A few of these places existed in certain corners of London long before -that date, but it is only lately that the Londoner has discovered them -and called for more. The Londoner--I offer this fact to all students of -national traits--must always lean when taking his refreshment. Certain -gay and festive gentlemen, who constitute an instrument of order called -the Central Control Board, forbid him to lean in those places where, of -old, he was accustomed to lean; at any rate, he is only allowed to lean -during certain defined hours. You might think that he would have gladly -availed himself of this opportunity for resting awhile by sitting at a -marble-topped table and drinking coffee or tea, or--horrid -thought!--cocoa. But no; he isn't happy unless he leans over his -refreshment; and the café-bar has supplied his demands. There is -something in leaning against a bar which entirely changes one's outlook. -You may sit at a table and drink whisky-and-soda, and yet not achieve a -tithe of the expansiveness that is yours when you are leaning against a -bar and drinking dispiriting stuff like coffee or sirop. Maybe the -physical attitude reacts on the mind, and tightens up certain cords or -sinews, or eases the blood-pressure; anyway, fears, doubts, and cautions -seem to vanish in these little corners of France, and momentarily the -old animation of Soho returns. - -In these places you may perchance yet capture for a fleeting space the -will-o'-the-wisperie of other days: movement and festal colour; laughter -and quick tears; the warm jest and the darkling mystery that epitomize -the city of all cities; and the wanton, rose-winged graces that flutter -about the fair head of M'selle Lolotte, as she hands you your café -nature and an April smile for sweetening, carry to you a breath of the -glitter and spaciousness of old time. You do not know Lolotte, perhaps! -Thousand commiserations, M'sieu! What damage! Is Lolotte lovely and -delicate? But of a loveliness of the most ravishing! The shining hair -and the eyes of the most disturbing! Lolotte is in direct descent from -Mimi Pinson, half angel and half puss. - -Soldiers of all the Allied armies gather about her crescent-shaped bar -after half-past nine of an evening. The floor is sawdusted. The counter -is sloppy with overflows of coffee. Lips and nose receive from the air -that bitter tang derived only from the smoke of Maryland tobacco. The -varied uniforms of the patrons make a harmony of debonair gaiety with -the many-coloured bottles of cordials and sirops. - -"_Pardon, m'sieu!_" cries the poilu, as he accidentally jogs the arm by -which Sergeant Michael Cassidy is raising his coffee-cup. - -"_Oh, sarner fairy hang, mossoo! Moselle, donnay mwaw urn Granny Dean._" - -"_M'sieu parle français, alors?_" - -"_Ah, oui. Jer parle urn purr._" - -And another supporting column is added to the structure of the Entente. - -Over in the corner stands a little fat fellow. That corner belongs to -him by right of three years' occupation. He is 'Ockington from a nearby -printing works. Ask 'Ockington what he thinks about these 'ere -coffee-bars. - -"Ah," he'll say, "I like these Frenchified caffies. Grand idea, if you -ask me. Makes yeh feel as though you was abroad-like. Gives yeh that -Lazy-Fare feelin'. I bin abroad, y'know. Dessay you 'ave, too, shouldn't -wonder. I don't blame yeh. See what yeh can while yeh can, 'ats what I -say. My young Sid went over to Paris one Bang Koliday, 'fore the war, -an' he come back as different again. Yerce, I'm all fer the French -caffies, I am. Nicely got up, I think. Good meoggerny counter; and this -floor and the walls--all done in that what-d'ye call it--mosey-ac. What -I alwis say is this: the French is a gay nation. Gay. And you feel it -'ere, doncher? Sort of cheers you up, like, if yer know what I mean, to -drop in 'ere for a minute or two.... Year or two ago, now, after a rush -job at the Works, I used to stop at a coffee-stall on me way 'ome late -at night, an' 'ave a penny cup o' swipes--yerce, an' glad _of_ it. But -the difference in the stuff they give yer 'ere--don't it drink lovely -and smooth?" - -Then his monologue is interrupted by the electric piano, which some one -has fed with pennies; and your ear is charmed or tortured by the latest -revue music or old favourites from Paris and Naples--"Marguerite," "Sous -les ponts de Paris," "Monaco," the Tripoli March. If you appear -interested in the piano, whose voice Lolotte loves, she will offer to -toss you for the next penn'orth. Never does she lose. She wins by the -simple trick of snatching your penny away the moment you lift your hand -from it, and gurgling delightedly at your discomfiture. - -No wonder the coffee-bar has become such a feature of London life in -this time of war. Leaning, in Lolotte's bar, is a real and not a forced -pleasure. In the old days one could lean and absorb the drink of one's -choice; but amid what company and with what service! Who could possibly -desire to exchange fatigued inanities with the vacuous vulgarities who -administer the ordinary London bar; who seem, like telephone girls, to -have taken lessons from some insane teacher of elocution, with their -"Nooh riarly?" expressive of incredulity; and their "Is yewers a -Scartch, Mr. Iggulden?" But in Lolotte's bar, talk is bright, sometimes -distinctly clever, and one lingers over one's coffee, chaffering with -her for--well, ask 'Ockington how long he stays. - -But Lolotte is not always gay. Sometimes she will tell you stories of -Paris. There is a terrible story which she tells when she is feeling -triste. It is the story of a girl friend of hers with whom she worked -in Paris. The girl grew ill; lost her work; and earned her living by the -only possible means, until she grew too ill for that. One night Lolotte -met her wearily walking the streets. She had been without food for two -days, and had that morning been turned from her lodging. Suddenly, as -they passed a florist's, she darted through its doors and inquired the -price of some opulent blooms at the further end of the shop. The -shop-man turned towards them, and, as he turned, she dexterously -snatched a bunch of white violets from a vase on the counter. The price -of the orchids, she decided, was too high, and she came out. - -Lolotte, who had seen the trick from the doorway, inquired the reason -for the theft. And the answer was: - -"_Eh, bien; il faut avoir quelquechose quand on va rencontrer le bon -Dieu._" - -Two days later her body, with a bunch of white violets fastened at the -neck, was recovered from the Seine. - - - - -OUT OF TOWN - - -It was an empty day, in the early part of the year, and I was its very -idle singer; so idle that I was beginning to wonder whether there would -be any Sunday dinner for me. I took stock of my possessions in coin, and -found one-and-ten-pence-halfpenny. Was I downhearted? Yes. But I didn't -worry, for when things are at their worst, my habit is always to fold my -hands and trust. Something always happens. - -Something happened on this occasion: a double knock at the door and a -telegram. It was from the most enlightened London publisher, whose firm -has done so much in the way of encouraging young writers, and it asked -me to call at once. I did so. - -"Like to go to Monte Carlo?" he asked. - -When I had recovered from the swoon, I begged him to ask another. - -"Here's an American millionaire," he said, "writing from Monte Carlo. -He wants to write a book, and he wants some assistance. How would it -suit you?" - -I said it would suit me like a Savile Row outfit of clothes. - -"When can you go?" - -"Any old time." - -"Right. You'd better wire him, and tell him I told you to. Don't let -yourself go cheap. Good-bye." - -I didn't fall on his neck in an outburst of gratitude: he wouldn't have -liked it. But I yodelled and chirruped all the way to the nearest -post-office, having touched a friend for ten shillings on the strength -of the stunt. All that day and the next, telegrams passed between Monte -Carlo and Balham. I asked a noble salary and expenses, and a wire came -back: "Start at once." I replied: "No money." Ten pounds were delivered -at my doorstep next morning, with the repeated message "Start at once." - -But starting at once, in war-time, was not so easily done. There was a -passport to get. That meant three days' lounging in a little wooden hut -in the yard of the Foreign Office. Having got the passport, I spent four -hours in a queue outside the French Consulate before I could get it -_visé_. Six days after the first telegram, I stood shivering on Victoria -Station at seven o'clock of a cadaverous January morning. Having been -well and truly searched in another little hut, and having kissed the -book, and sworn full-flavoured oaths about correspondence, and thought -of a number, and added four to it, I was allowed to board the train. - -Half the British Army was on that train, and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome and -myself were the only civilians in our carriage. You will rightly guess -that it was a lively journey. I had always wondered, in peace-time, why -the jew's-harp was invented. I understand now. In the histories of this -war, the jew's-harp will take as romantic a place as the pipes of -Lucknow or the drums of Oude in the histories of other wars. - -At Folkestone there were more searchings, more stamping of passports, -more papers and "permissions" to bulk one's pocket and perplex one's -mind. On the boat, standing-room only, and when a gestic stewardess -sought seats for a fond mother and five little ones in the ladies' -saloon, she found all places occupied by khaki figures stretched at full -length. - -"_Seulement les dames!_" she cried, pointing to a notice over the door. - -"_Aha, madame!_" said a stalwart Australian, "_mais c'est la guerre!_" -In other words "Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell to you!" - -Yes, it was war; and it was tactfully suggested to us by the crew, for, -when we were clear of Folkestone harbour, all boats were slung out, and -lifeboats were placed in tragic heaps on either side. It was a cold, -angry sea, and stewards and stewardesses became aggressively prophetic -about the fine crossing that we were to have. Germany had a few days -before declared her first blockade of the English coast, and every speck -on the sea became dreadfully portentous. At mid-Channel a destroyer -stood in to us and ran up a stream of signals. - -"This is it," chortled a Cockney, between violent trips to the side; -"this is it! Now we're for it!" - -Next moment I got a push in the back, and I thought it had come. But it -was the elbow of one of the crew who had rushed forward, and was sorting -bits of bunting from an impossibly tangled heap at my side. In about two -seconds, he found what he wanted and hauled at a rope. Up went what -looked like a patchwork counterpane, until the breeze caught it, when it -became a string of shapes and colours, straining deliriously against its -fastenings. Then down it came; then up again; then down; then up; then -down; and that was the end of that conversation. I don't know what it -signified, but half an hour later we were in Boulogne harbour. - -More comic business with papers; then to the train. Yes, it was war. The -bridge over the Oise had not then been repaired; so we crawled to Paris -by an absurdly crab-like route. We left Boulogne just after twelve. We -reached Paris at ten o'clock at night. There was no food on the train, -and from six o'clock that morning, when I had had a swift cup of tea, -until nearly midnight I got nothing in the way of refreshment. But who -cared? I was going South to meet an American millionaire, and I had -money in my pocket. - -I arrived at Paris too late to connect with that night's P.L.M. express, -so I had twenty-four hours to kill. I strolled idly about, and found -Paris very little changed. There was an air about the people of -irritation, of questioning, of petulant suffering; they had a manner -expressive of "_A quoi bon?_" Somebody in high quarters had brought -this thing upon them. Somebody in high quarters might rescue them from -its evils--or might not. They moved like stricken animals, their -habitual melancholy, which is often unnoticed because it is overlaid -with vivacity, now permanently in possession. - -I caught the night express to Monte Carlo. Our carriage contained eight -sombre people, and the corridors were strewn with sleep-stupid soldiers. -I was one sardine among many, and, with a twenty-seven-hour journey -before me in this overheated, hermetically sealed sardine-tin, I began -to think what a fool I had been to make this absurd journey to a place -that was strange to me; to meet a millionaire about whom I knew nothing, -and who might have changed his mind, millionaire-fashion, and left Monte -Carlo by the time I got there; and to undertake a job which I might -find, on examination, was beyond me. - -Then, with a French girl's head on one shoulder, and my other twisted at -an impossible angle into the window-frame, I went to sleep and awoke at -Lyons, with a horrible headache and an unbearable mouth, the result of -the boiling and over-spiced soup I had swallowed the night before. I -think we all hated each other. It was impossible to wash or arrange -oneself decently, and again there was no food on the train. But, as only -the Latin mind can, we made the best of it and pretended that it was -funny. Girls and men, complete strangers, drooped in abandonment against -one another, or reclined on unknown necks. A young married couple -behaved in a way that at other times would have meant a divorce. The -husband rested his sagging head on the bosom of a stout matron, and a -poilu stretched a rug across his knees and made a comfortable pillow for -the little wife. _N'importe. C'était la guerre._ - -On the platform at Lyons were groups of French Red Cross girls with -wagons of coffee. This coffee was for the soldiers, but they handed it -round impartially to civilians and soldiers alike, and those who cared -could drop a few sous into the collecting basin. That coffee was the -sweetest draught I had ever swallowed. - -At Marseilles it was bright morning, and I was lucky enough to get a -pannier, at a trifling cost of seven francs. These panniers are no meal -for a hungry man. They contain a bone of chicken, a scrap of ham, a -corner of Gruyère, a stick of bread (that surely was made by the firm -that put the sand in sandwich), a half-bottle of sour white wine, a -bottle of the eternal Vichy, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. - -I had just finished it when we rolled into Toulon, and there I got my -first glimpse of the true, warm South. I suffered a curious sense of -"coming home." I had not known it, but all my childish dreams must have -had for their background this coloured South, for, the moment it spread -itself before me, bits of Verdi melodies ran through my heart and brain -and I danced a double-shuffle. Since I was old enough to handle a -fiddle, all music has interpreted itself to me in a visualization of -blue seas, white coasts, green palms with lemon and nectarine dancing -through them, and noisy, sun-bright towns, and swart faces and -languorous and joyfully dirty people. The keenest sense of being at home -came later, when, at Monte Carlo, I met Giacomo Puccini, the hero of my -young days, whose music had illumined so many dark moments of my City -slavery; who is in the direct line of succession from Verdi. - -This first visit to Monte Carlo showed me Monte Carlo as she never was -before. Half the hotels were closed or turned into hospitals, since all -the German hotel-staffs had been packed home. In other times it would -have been "the season," but now there was everywhere a sense of -emptiness. Wounded British and French officers paraded the Terrace; -disabled blacks from Algeria were on every hotel verandah or wandering -aimlessly about the hilly streets with a sad air of being lost. The -Casino was open, but it closed at eleven, and all the cafés closed with -it; the former happy night-life had been nipped off short. At midnight -the place was dead. - -I was accommodated at an Italian _pension_ in Beausoleil, which, in -peace-times, was patronized by music-hall artists working the Beausoleil -casino. The Casino had been turned into a barracks, but one or two -Italian danseuses from the cabarets of San Remo were taking a brief -rest, so that the days were less tiresome than they might have been. My -millionaire was a charming man, who used my services but a few hours -each day. Then I could dally with the sunshine and the Chianti and the -breaking seas about the Condamine. - -When I next want a cheap holiday I shan't go to Brighton, or Eastbourne, -or Cromer; I shall go to Monte Carlo. The dear Italian Mama who kept the -_pension_ treated me like a prince for thirty-five francs a week. I had -a large bedroom, with four windows looking to the Alpes Maritimes, and a -huge, downy French bed; I had coffee and roll in the morning; a -four-course lunch of Italian dishes, with a bottle of Chianti or Barolo; -and a five-course dinner, again with a bottle. Those meals were the most -delightful I have ever taken. The windows of the dining-room were flung -wide to the Mediterranean, and between courses we could bask on the -verandah while one of the girls would touch the guitar, the mandolin, or -the accordion (sometimes we had all three going at once), in -effervescent Neapolitan melody. My contribution to these meal-time -entertainments was an English song of which they never tired: "The Man -that Broke the Bank at Monte Carr-rr-lo!" Sometimes it was demanded five -or six times in an evening. Immediately I arrived I was properly -embraced and kissed by Mama and the three girls, and these rapturous -kisses seemed to be part of the etiquette of the establishment, for they -happened every morning and after all meals. M'selle Lola was allotted to -me; a blonde Italian, afire with mischief and loving-kindness and little -delicacies of affection. - -On the third day of my visit I met a kindred soul, the wireless -operator from the Prince of Monaco's yacht, _L'Hirondelle_, which was -lying in the harbour on loan to the French Government. He was a bright -youth; had been many times on long cruises with the yacht, and spoke -English which was as good as my French was bad. We had some delightful -"noces" together, and it was in his company that I met and had talks -with Caruso at the Café de Paris. An opera season was running at the -Casino, and on opera nights the café remained open until a little past -midnight. After the evening's work Caruso would drop into the café and -talk with everybody. His naïve gratification when I told him how I had -saved money for weeks, and had waited hours at the gallery door of -Covent Garden to hear him sing, was delightful to witness. Prince George -of Serbia was also there, recuperating; but though the Terrace at -mid-day was crowded and pleasantly bright, I was told that against the -Terrace in the old seasons it was miserably dull. - -On ordinary nights, when we felt still fresh at eleven o'clock, we would -take a car to Mentone, cross the frontier into Italy (which was not then -at war), and spend a few cheery hours at Bordighera or San Remo, which -were nightless. Then back to Monte Carlo at about five, to bed, and up -again at nine, with no feeling of fatigue. It was curious to note how, -under that sharp sunshine and keen night sky, all moral values were -changed, or wholly obliterated. The first breath of the youthful company -at the _pension_ blew all London cobwebs away. It was all so abandoned, -yet so sweet and wholesome; and, by contrast, the English seaside -resort, where the girls play at "letting themselves go," was a crude and -shameful farce. Whatever happened at Monaco seemed to be right; nothing -was wrong except frigidity and unkindness. - -My dear Italian Mama said to me one evening at dinner, when I had (in -the English sense) disgraced myself by a remark straight from the -heart:-- - -"_M'sieu Thomas, on m'a dit que les anglais ont froid. C'est pas vrai!_" - -No, dear Mamina; but it was true before I stayed at the Pension Poggio -at Beausoleil. - -My work with the millionaire spread itself over two months; then, with a -fat wad, I was free to return. It was not until I went to the Consulate -to get my passport _visé_ that I discovered how many war-time laws of -France I had broken. I had not registered myself on arrival; I had not -reported myself periodically; and I had not obtained a _permis de -séjour_. The Consul informed me cheerfully that heaps of trouble would -be waiting for me when I went to the Mairie to get my _laissez-passer_, -without which I could not buy a railway ticket. However, after being -stood in a corner for two hours until all other travellers had received -attention, a _laissez-passer_ was thrown at me on my undertaking to -leave Monte Carlo that night. A gendarme accompanied me to the station -to see that I did so. - -At Paris, a few hours spent with the police, the military, -Hôtel-de-Ville, and the British Consulate resulted in permission to kick -my heels there for a day or so. - -A few mornings later arrived the millionaire's precious MS., which I had -left behind so that he might revise it, with a message to hustle. I -hustled. I reached London the same night. Next morning I negotiated with -a publisher. In two days it was in the printer's hands and in a -fortnight it was in the bookshops; and I was again out of a job. - - - - -IN SEARCH OF A SHOW - - -I have been looking for a needle in a haystack, and I have not found it. -I have been looking for an hour's true entertainment in London's -theatres and music-halls during this spring season of 1918. - -The tag of Mr. Gus Elen's old song, "'E dunno where 'e are," very aptly -describes the condition of the regular theatre-goer to-day. What would -the old laddies of the Bodega-cheese days have thought, had any -prophesied that at one swift step the Oxford and the Pavilion would -simultaneously move into the ranks of the "legitimate;" that His -Majesty's Theatre would be running a pantomime; that smoking would be -allowed in the Lyceum, the Comedy, the Vaudeville, and the Garrick? Many -people have lost their individuality by being merged into one or other -war-movement since 1914; many streets have entirely lost those -distinctive features which enable us to recognize them at one glance or -by sound or smell; but nowhere has the war more completely smashed -personality than in theatre-land. - -In the old days (one must use that pathetic phrase in speaking of -ante-1914), the visitor to London knew precisely the type of -entertainment and the type of audience he would find at any given -establishment. To-day, one figures his bewilderment--verily, 'e dunno -where 'e are. Formerly, he could be sure that at the Garrick he would -find Mr. Bourchier playing a Bourchieresque part. At His Majesty's he -would find just what he wanted--or would want what he found--for going -to His Majesty's was not a matter of dropping in: it was a pious -function. At the Alhambra or the Empire he would be sure of finding -excellent ballet at about ten o'clock, when he could sip his drink, -stroll round the promenade, and leave when he felt like it. At the time -I write he finds Mr. Bourchier playing low comedy at a transformed -music-hall, and at the Alhambra or the Empire he finds a suburban crowd, -neatly seated in rows--father, mother and flappers--watching a quite -innocuous entertainment. - -Managers were long wont to classify in their minds the "Garrick" -audience, the "Daly" audience, the "Adelphi" audience, the "Haymarket" -audience; and plays would be refused by a manager on the ground that -"our audience wouldn't stand it; try the Lyric." To-day they are all in -the melting-pot, and the poor habitué of the So-and-so Theatre has to -take what is given him, and be mighty thankful for it. - -At one time I loved a show, however cheap its kind; but in these days, -after visiting a war-time show and suffering the feeling of assisting at -some forbidden rite, I always wish I had wasted the evening in some -other manner. Since 1914 the theatres have not produced one show that -any sober man would pay two pence to see. The stuff that has been -produced has paid its way because the bulk of the public is drunk--with -war or overwork. The story of the stage since 1914 may be given in one -word--"Punk." Knowing that we are all too preoccupied with solemn -affairs to examine very closely our money's-worth, and knowing that the -boys on leave are not likely to be too hypercritical, the theatrical -money-lords--with one noble exception--have taken advantage of the -situation to fub us off with any old store-room rubbish. We have dozens -of genuine music-hall comedians on the stage to-day, but they are all -slacking. Some of them get absorbed by West End shows, and at once, when -they appear on the gigantic American stages of some of our modern -theatres, surrounded by crowds of elephantine women, they lose whatever -character and spontaneity they had. Others give the bulk of their time -and brains to earning cheap notoriety by raising funds for charities or -cultivating allotments--both commendable activities, but not compatible -with the serious business of cheering the public. Gradually, the -individual is being frozen out, and the stages are loaded with crowds of -horsey, child-aping women, called by courtesy a beauty chorus; the show -being called, also by courtesy, a revue. These shows resemble a revue as -much as the short stories of popular magazines resemble a _conte_. They -dazzle the eye and blast the ear, and, instead of entertaining, exhaust. - -The artists have, allowing for human nature, done their best under -trying circumstances; but playing to an audience of overseas khaki and -tired working-people, who applaud their most maladroit japes, has had -the effect of wearing them down. They no longer work. They take the -easiest way, knowing that any remark about the Kaiser, Old Bill, -meat-cards, or the Better 'Ole is sure of a laugh. - -One solitary example of money's-worth in war-time I found--but that is -outside the lists of vaudeville or drama. I mean Sir Thomas Beecham's -operative enterprise. Beginning, in 1915, to develop his previous -tentative experiments--fighting against indifference, prejudice, often -against active opposition--he went steadily on; and it is he whom our -men must thank if, on returning, they find in England something besides -factories and barracks. There is no man who, amid this welter of blood -and hate, has performed work of higher national importance. While every -effort was made to stifle or stultify every movement that made towards -sanity and vision, he went doggedly forward, striving to save from the -wreckage some trifle of sweetness and loveliness for those who have ears -to hear. Had certain good people had their way, he, his ideals, his -singers, his orchestra and his band instruments would have been flung -into the general cesspool, to lie there and rot. But he won through; and -I think only that enemy of civilization, the screaming, flag-wagging -patriot, will disagree with a famous Major-General who, in full -war-paint, stood at my side in the theatre bar between the acts of -_Tristan_, and, turning upon a querulous civilian who had snorted -against Wagner, cried angrily:-- - -"Nonsense, sir, nonsense. War is war. And music is music." - -After years of struggling, Beecham has made it possible for an English -singer to sing to English audiences under his English name, and has -proved what theatrical and music-hall managers never attempt to prove: -that England can produce her own native talent in music and drama, -without taking the fourth-rate and fifth-rate, as well as the -first-rate, material of America and the Continent. He has shown himself -at once a philanthropist and a patriot. In none of his productions do we -find signs of that cheap philosophy that "anything will do for -war-time." Before the arrival of his company, opera in London was a mere -social function which (except from the point of view of the galleryite) -had little to do with music. People went to Covent Garden not to listen -to music, but to be seen; just as they went to the Savoy or to the -Carlton to be seen, not to procure nourishment. The Beecham opera is -first and last a matter of music. - -So, Sir Thomas, a few thousand of us take off our hats to you. I think -we should all like to send you every morning a little bunch of violets, -or something equally valueless, but symbolic of the fine things you have -given us, of the silver lining you have disclosed to us in these -overclouded days. - - - - -VODKA AND VAGABONDS - - -Last year London lost two of its quaintest characters--Robertson, of -Australia, that pathetic old man who haunted the Strand and carried in -his hat a clumsily scrawled card announcing that he was searching for -his errant daughter, and "Please Do Not Give Me Money"; and "Spring -Onions," the Thames Police Court poet. - -Now the race of London freaks seems ended. Craig, the poet of the Oval -Cricket ground; Spiv Bagster; the Chiswick miser; Onions and Robertson; -all are gone. Hunnable is confined; and G. N. Curzon isn't looking any -too well. Even that prolific poet, Rowbotham, self-styled "the modern -Homer," has been keeping quiet lately. It took a universal war, though, -to make him nod. - -I met "Spring" (privately, Mr. W. G. Waters) once or twice at Stepney. -He was a vagrant minstrel of the long line of Villon and Cyrano de -Bergerac. His anniversary odes were known to thousands of newspaper -readers. He was the self-appointed Laureate of the nation. He -celebrated not only himself, his struggles and successes, but the -pettier happenings of the day, such as the death of a king, the -accession of a king, or the marriage of some royal couple. You remember -his lines on the Coronation of Edward VII:-- - - - The King, His Majesty, and may him Heaven bless, - He don't put no side on in his dress. - For, though he owns castles and palaces and houses, - He wears, just like you and me, coats and waistcoats and trousis. - - -The character of the genial Edward in four lines. Could it have been -better said? - -Not to know Spring argues yourself unknown. He might have stepped from -the covers of Dekker's _Gull's Hornbook_. He was a child of nature. I -can't bring myself to believe that he was born of woman. I believe the -fairies must have left him under the gooseberry--no, under the laurel -bush, for he wore the laurel, the myrtle, and the bay as one born to -them. He also, on occasion, wore the vine-leaf; and surely that is now -an honour as high as the laurel, since all good fellowship and -kindliness and conviviality have been sponged from our social life. We -have been made dull and hang-dog by law. I wonder what Spring would have -said about that law in his unregenerate days--Spring, who was "in" -thirty-nine times for "D. and D." He would have written a poem about it, -I know: a poem that would have rung through the land, and have brought -to camp the numerous army of Boltists, Thresholdists, and Snortists. - -Oh, Spring has been one of the boys in his time, believe me. But in his -latter years he was dull and virtuous; he kept the pledge of teetotalism -for sixteen years, teetotalism meaning abstention from alcoholic -liquors. This doesn't mean that he wasn't like all other teetotalers, -sometimes drunk. The pious sages who make our by-laws seem to forget -that it is as easy to get drunk on tea and coffee as on beer; the only -difference being that beer makes you pleasantly drunk, and tea and -coffee make you miserably drunk. - -If you knew Spring in the old days, you wouldn't have known him towards -the end--and I don't suppose he would have known you. For in his old age -he was a Person. He was odd messenger at Thames Police Court. In -November, 1898 Spring, who was then the local reprobate, took to heart -the kindly admonitions of Sir John Dickinson, then magistrate at Thames, -and signed the pledge of total abstinence. Ever afterwards, on the -anniversary of that great day. Spring would hand to the magistrate a -poem in celebration of the fact that he had "kept off it" for another -year. - -I visited Spring just before his death in his lodging--lodging stranger -than that of any Montmartre poet. - -The Thames Police Court is in Arbour Square, Stepney, and Spring lived -near his work. Through many mean streets I tracked his dwelling, and at -last I found it. I climbed flights of broken stairs in a high forbidding -house. I stumbled over steps and unexpected turns, and at last I stood -with a puffy, red-faced, grey-whiskers, stocky old fellow, in a -candle-lit garret whose one window looked over a furtively noisy court. - -It was probably his family name of Waters that drove him to drink in his -youth, since when, he has been known as the man who put the tea in -"teetotal." In his room I noticed a bed of nondescript colour and -make-up, a rickety chest of drawers (in which he kept his treasures), -two doubtful chairs, a table, a basin, and bits of food strewn -impartially everywhere. A thick, limp smell hung over all, and the place -seemed set a-jigging by the flickering light of the candle. There I -heard his tale. He sat on the safe chair while I flirted with the other. - -It was on the fortieth occasion that he yielded to Sir John Dickinson's -remonstrances and signed the pledge, and earned the respect of all -connected with that court where he had made so many appearances. All -through that Christmas and New Year he had, of course, a thin time; it -was suffocating to have to refuse the invitation: "Come on, -Spring--let's drink your health!" But what did Spring do? Did he yield? -Never. When he found he was thirsty, he sat down and wrote a poem, and -by the time he had found a rhyme for Burton, the thirst had passed. -Then, too, everybody took an interest in him and gave him work and -clothes, and so on. Oh, yes, it's a profitable job being a reformed -vagabond in Stepney. - -He was employed on odd messages and errands for the staff at Thames -Police Court, and visited the police-stations round about to do similar -errands, such as buying breakfast for the unfortunates who have been -locked up all night and are about to face the magistrate. Whatever an -overnight prisoner wants in the way of food he may have (intoxicants -barred), if he cares to pay for it, and Spring was the agile fellow who -fetched it for him; and many stray coppers (money, not policemen) came -his way. - -All these things he told me as I sat in his mephitic lodging. Spring, -like his brother Villon, was a man of all trades; no job was too "odd" -for him to take on. Holding horses, taking messages from court to -station, writing odes on this and that, opening and shutting doors, and -dashing about in his eightieth year just like a newsboy--Spring was -certainly a credit to Stepney. On my mentioning that I myself made songs -at times, he dashed off the following impromptu, as I was falling down -his crazy stairs at midnight:-- - - - Oh, how happy we all should be, - If none of us ever drank anything stronger than tea. - For how can a man hope to write a beautiful song - When he is hanging round the public-houses all day long? - - -"Spring Onions" apart, Stepney is a home for all manner of queer -characters, full of fire and salt; from Peter the Painter, of immortal -memory, to those odd-job men who live well by being Jacks of all trades, -and masters of them, too. - -There are my good friends, Johnny, the scavenger, Mr. 'Opkinson, the -cat's-meat man, 'Erb, the boney, Fat Fred, who keeps the baked-potato -can, and that lovable personality "My Uncle Toby," gate-man at one of -the docks. - -There's 'Orace, too, the minder. Ever met him? Ever employed him? -Probably not, but if you live near any poor market-place, and ever have -occasion for his services, I cordially recommend him. - -'Orace is the best minder east of the Pump. What does he mind? Your -business, not his. Haven't you ever seen him at it in the more homely -quarters? At a penny a time, it's good hunting; and 'Orace is the only -man I know who blesses certain recent legislation. - -His profession sprang from the Children Act, which debarred parents from -taking children into public-houses. Now, there are thousands of -respectable couples who like to have a quiet--or even a noisy--drink on -market-night; and the effect of the Act was that they had to go in -singly, one taking a drink while the other stood outside and held the -baby. - -There was 'Orace's opportunity, and he took it. Why not let father and -mother take their drink together, while 'Orace sang lullabies to his -Majesty? - -Admirable idea. It caught on, for 'Orace has a way with babies. He can -talk baby guff by the hour, and in the whole of his professional career -he has never had to mind a baby that did not "take" to him on sight. - -The fee is frequently more than a penny. If the old dad wants to stay -for a bit, he will stand 'Orace a drink (under the rose) and a pipe of -'baccy. Sundays and holidays are his best days. He selects his -public-house, on the main road always, and works it all day. Often he -has five or six kiddies at a time to protect; and he gave me a private -tip towards success as a "minder": always carry a number of bright -things in your pockets--nails, pearl buttons, bits of coloured chalk, -or, best of all, a piece of putty. - -Outside his regular pitch, the public-house owns a horse-trough, but as -no horses now draw up, the trough is dry, and in this he places his -half-dozen or so protégés, out of danger and as happy as you please. - -Then there's Artie, the copper's nark. What shall be said of Artie? -Shall I compare him to a summer's day? No, I think not; rather to a -cobwebbed Stepney twilight. I don't commend Artie. Indeed, I have as -little regard for him as I have for those poisonous weeds that float on -the Thames near Greenwich at flood. He is a thoroughly disagreeable -person, with none of the acid qualities of the really bad man or the -firelight glow of commonplace sinners like ourselves. He is incapable of -following any other calling. He has been, from boyhood, mixed up with -criminal gangs, but he has not the backbone necessary for following them -on their enterprises. Always he has wanted to feel safe; so he cringes -at the feet of officialism. He is hated by all--by the boys whose games -he springs and by the unscrupulous police who employ him. His rewards -are small: a few pence now and then, an occasional drink, and a tolerant -eye towards his own little misbehavings. - -Often the police are puzzled as to how Artie gets his information. If -you were to ask him, he would become Orientally impassive. - -"Ah, you'd like to know, wouldn't yer?" - -But the truth is that he does not himself know. In a poor -district--Walworth, Hoxton, or Notting Dale--everybody talks; and it is -in these districts that Artie works. He is useless in big criminal -affairs; he can only gather and report information on the petty doings -of his associates. The moment any small burglary is planned, two or -three people know about it, for the small burglar is always maladroit -and ill-instructed in his methods, and is bound to confide in some one. -Artie is always about like a predatory bird to snatch up crumbs of other -people's business. - -Are you married, and were you married at a Registry Office? If so, it's -certain that you've met my dear old friend. Stepney Syd, the -Congratulator, one of our most earnest war-workers; as "unwearied" as -Lady Dardy Dinkum. - -Congratulations, spoken at the right moment, in the right way, to the -right people, are a paying proposition. The war has made no difference -in the value of those mellifluous syllables, unless it be in an upward -direction. It's a soft job, too. Syd never works after three in the -afternoon. He cannot, because his work is the concluding touch to the -marriage service. It consists in hanging about registry-offices--that in -Covent Garden is very popular with young people in a hurry--and waiting -until a cab arrives with prospective bride and bridegroom. When they -leave, Syd is there to open the door for them, and respectfully offer -felicitations; and so fatuous and helpless is man when he has taken a -woman for life that he dare not ignore this happy omen. - -Thus, Syd comes home every time on a good thing, and, by careful -watching of the weekly papers in the Free Library, and putting two and -two together, he contrives, like some of our politicians, to anticipate -events, and to be where the good things are. - -Strolling round Montagu Street the other night, I met, in one of the -little Russian cafés, a man who pitched me a tale of woe--a lean, -ferrety little man, with ferrety eyes and fingers that urged me to -button my overcoat and secure all pockets. - -But I was shocked to discover that he was an honest man. Diamonds and -honesty seldom walk hand-in-hand, and precious stones and virtue do not -yet publicly kiss each other; and he talked so much of diamonds that my -first apprehensions were perhaps justified. I learnt, however, that his -was a sad case. He was a diamond-cutter by trade, and in those war days -one might as usefully have diamonds in Amsterdam (as Maudi Darrell's -song went) as have them in London. - -I had not before met a man who so casually juggled with the symbols of -revue-girlhood, so I bought him some more vodka and tea-and-lemon, and -led him on to talk. Stones to the value of £20,000 passed through his -hands every day, but none of them stuck. This fact greatly refreshed my -dimming faith in human nature, until he qualified it by adding that it -wasn't worth a cutter's while to steal. Every worker in the trade is -known to every branch, and he would have no second chance. - -Apprenticeship to the trade of diamond-cutting costs £200: and, once out -of his indentures, the apprentice must join the Union, for it would be -useless for him, however proficient in his business, to attempt to -obtain a post without his Union ticket. - -The diamond-mechanic earns anything from £3 to £8 per week. The work -calls for a very considerable knowledge of the characters of stones, for -very deft fingers, and for exceptionally shrewd judgment; since every -diamond or brilliant, however minute, has sixty-four facets, each of -which has to be made and polished on a lathe. - -The stones are handed out in the workshop practically haphazard, and in -the event of the loss of a stone, no disturbance is caused. The staff -simply look for it; the floor of the shop is swept up with a fine broom, -and the dust sifted until it is found. The explanation of this laxity -is the International Diamond Cutters' Union. - -In the process of diamond-cutting, of course, the stone loses about 60 -per cent. of its weight; and the cutter told me that the filings that -come from the stone, mixed with the oil of the lathe, make the finest -lubricant for a razor-strop. The making of his smooth cheeks was the -perfect razor sharpened with diamond filings! - -Before we parted, he showed me casually a green diamond. This is the -most rare form of stone, and there are only six known examples in the -world. No, he didn't steal it. It had just been handed to him for -setting, and he was carrying it in his waistcoat-pocket in the careless -manner of all stone-dealers. - -After he and a sure thousand pounds had vanished into the night, I sat -for awhile in the café listening to the chatter of the cigarette-girls -of the quarter. - -It was all of war. Of Stefan, who had been repatriated; of Abramovitch, -who had evaded service by bolting to Ireland with a false green form for -which he had paid £100; of Sergius, who had been hiding in a cellar. - -When one thinks of cigarette-girls one thinks at once of Marion -Crawford's _Cigarette-maker's Romance_ and of Martin Harvey's -super-sentimental performance in that play, so dear to the Streatham -flapper. But Sonia Karavitch, though soaked in the qualities of her -race--dark beauty, luxurious curls, brooding temper, and spiritual -melancholy--would, I fear, repel those who only know her under the -extravagantly refining rays of the limelight. But those who love -humanity in the raw will love her. - -Sonia Karavitch is seventeen. She wears a black frock, with many sprigs -of red ribbon at her neck and in her raven hair. Her fingers are stained -brown with tobacco; but, though she has heavy eyes and lounges -languorously, like a drowsy cat in the sunshine, she works harder than -most other factory-girls. - -From six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night she is at -her table, rolling by the thousand those hand-made cigarettes which -command big prices in Piccadilly. When she speaks she has a lazy voice -with a curious lisp, and it is full of sadness. - -Yet she is not sad. She has a pleasant little home in one of the big -tenements, where she lives with her mother and little brother, and, in -her own demonstrative way, is happy. The harder she works, the more -money there is for luxuries for the little brother. Often of an evening -her friends come home with her, and drink tea-and-lemon with her, and -make music. - -Sonia Karavitch is very shy, and never mixes with the folk who are not -of her own colony. She was born in Stepney of Russian parents, and she -never goes out of Stepney. And why should she? For in the half-dozen -streets where she lives her daily life she can speak the language of her -parents, can buy clothes such as her mother wore in Odessa, and can find -all those little touches that mean home to the homeless or the exiled. - -Every morning she goes straight to the factory; at noon she goes home to -dinner; and in the evening she goes straight home again. Sometimes on -Saturday afternoons--which is her Sunday, for Sonia is of Jewish -faith--she takes a walk in Whitechapel High Street, because, you see, -there is much life in Whitechapel High Street; there are her -compatriots, and there are street-organs, and violets are a penny a -bunch. - -When she has had a good week she sometimes takes her mother and brother -for kvass to one of the many Russian restaurants in Osborn Street and -Little Montagu Street. - -Sometimes you see Sonia Karavitch at a table, sipping her tea, and -listening to the talk, and you may wonder why that sad, far-away look in -her eyes. She is not in Stepney. Her soul has flown to her native -land--to the steppes, to the cold airs of Russia, whither a certain -Russian lad, who used to work by her side in the cigarette factory in -Osborn Street, was dispatched by a repatriation order. - -But then she remembers mother and little brother, and stops her -dreamings, and hurries on to work. - -Many wild folk have sat in these cafés and discoursed on the injustices -of civilization; and at one time private presses in the neighbourhood -gave forth inflammatory sheets bearing messages from international -warriors in the cause of freedom. - -If ever you are tired of the solemn round of existence, don't take a -holiday at the seaside, don't go to the war. Edit an anarchist -news-sheet, and your life will be full of quick perils and alarms. - -Another of my Stepney friends is Jane, the flower-girl, who tramps every -day from Stepney to Covent Garden, and sells her stock from a pitch -near Leicester Square. Here's another ardent war-worker. - -Some worthy people may not think that the selling of violets comes -properly under the fine exclusive label of War Work; but these are the -neurotics whose only idea of doing their bit is that of twisting their -soiling fingers about anything that carries a message of grace; who fume -at a young man because he isn't in khaki, and, when he is in uniform, -kill him with a look because he isn't in hospital blue, and, when he is -in hospital, regard him askance because he isn't eager to go back. - -"Flowers!" they snort or wheeze. "Fiddling with flowers in war-time! It -ought to be stopped. Look at the waste of labour. Look at the press on -transport. Will the people never realize," etc. - -Yet, good troglodytes, because the world is at war, shall we then wipe -from the earth everything that links us, however lightly, to God--and -save Germany the trouble? Must everything be lead and steel? Old -Man--dost thou think, because thou art old, that glory and loveliness -have passed away with the corroding of thy bones? Nay, youth shall -still take or make its pleasure; fair girls shall still adorn their -limbs with silks, and flowers shall still be sweet to the nose. - -Old Man--on many occasions when I could get no food--not even -war-bread--the sight and smell of bunches of violets have furnished -sustenance for mind and body. So fill thy belly, if thou wilt, with the -waxy potato; put the Army cheese where the soldier puts the pudding; -shovel into thy mouth the frozen beef and offal that may renew thy -energies for further war-work; but, if there be any grace of God still -left in thee, if there be any virtue, any charity--leave, for those who -are shielding thy senescent body, the flower-girls about Piccadilly -Circus on a May morning. - -"Vi'lerts! Swee' Vi'lerts! Pennyer bunch!" - -Good morning, Jane! How sweet you and your violets look in the tangle of -traffic that laces and interlaces itself about Alfred Gilbert's Mercury. - -Morning by morning, fair or foggy, she stands by the fountain; and if -you give her more than a passing glance you will note that her tumbled -hair is of just the right shade of red, and in her eyes are the very -violets that she holds to your indifferent nose, and under her lucent -skin beat the imperious pulses of youth. - -Jane is fourteen, and Jane is always smiling; not because she is -fourteen, but because it's such fun to be alive and to be selling -flowers. Indeed, she looks herself like a little posy, sweet and demure. -Times may be bad, but they are not reflected in Jane's appearance. - -Of education she has only what the Council School gave her in the odd -hours when she choose to attend; of religion she has none, but she has a -philosophy of her own, which, in a sentence, is To Get All The Fun You -Can Out of Things. - -That's why Jane's smile is a smile that certain people look for every -morning as they alight from their bus in the Circus. But you must not -imagine that Jane is good in the respectable sense of the word. Let -anyone annoy her, or try to "dish" her of one of her customers. Then, -when it comes to back-chat, Jane can more than hold her own in the -matter of language; and once I saw an artillery officer's face turn -livid during a discussion between her and a rival flower-girl. - -The war has hit Jane very badly. The young bloods who frequented her -stall in the old days, and bought the most expensive buttonholes every -morning, are now in khaki, and a thoughtless Army Order forbids an -officer to decorate his tunic with a spray of carnations or a moss-rose. - -There are only the old bounders remaining, and their custom depends so -much on such a number of things--the morning's news, the fact that they -are not ten years younger, the weather, and the state of their -digestions. - -Jane always reads the paper before she starts work, because, as she -says, then you know what to expect. She doesn't believe in meeting -trouble halfway, but she believes in being prepared for it. When there's -good news, stout old gentlemen will buy a bunch of violets for -themselves, and perhaps a cluster of blossoms for the typist. But when -the news is bad, nobody is in the mood for flowers. They want to band -themselves together and tell one another how awful it is; which, as Jane -says, is all wrong. - -"If they'd only buy a bunch of violets and stick it in their coats, -other people would feel better by looking at them, and they'd forget the -bad news in the jolly old smell in their buttonhole." - -Yes, Jane's fourteen years have given her much wisdom, and she is doing -as fine war-work as any admiral or field-marshal. - -While in Stepney we mustn't forget good Mrs. Joplin. Mrs. Joplin lives -up a narrow court of menacing aspect, and in her window is a printed -card, bearing the cryptic legend--"Mangling Done Here"--which, to an -American friend of mine, suggested that atrocities of a German kind were -going on downstairs. But I calmed his fears by assuring him that Mrs. -Joplin's business card was a simple indication of her willingness to -receive from her neighbours bundles of newly-washed clothes, and put -them through a machine called a mangle, from which they were discharged -neatly pressed and folded. The remuneration for this service is usually -but a few coppers--beer-money, nothing more; so to procure the decencies -of existence Mrs. Joplin lets her basement rooms for--What's that? Yes, -I daresay you've had a few pewter half-crowns and florins passed on you -lately, but what's that to do with me--or Mrs. Joplin? Do you want me to -suggest that good Mrs. Joplin is a twister; a snide-merchant? Never let -it be said. Good Mrs. Joplin, unlike so many of her neighbours, has -never seen the inside of a police-court, much less a prison. - -Speaking of prisons, it was in Stepney that I was told how to carry -myself if ever I came within the grip of the law on frequent occasions. -The English prison is not an establishment to which one turns with -anticipation of happiness; but there is one prison which is as good as a -home of rest for those suffering from the pain of the world. There is -but one condition of eligibility: you must be a habitual criminal. - -If you fulfilled that condition, you were dispatched to the Camp Hill -Detention Prison in the Isle of Wight. - -A most comfortable affair, this Camp Hill. It stands in pleasant -grounds, near Newport; and the walls are not the grey, scowling things -that enclose Holloway, or Reading, or Wandsworth, but walls of warm -brown stone, such as any good fellow of reputable fame might build about -his mansion. Close-shaven lawns and flower-beds delight the eye, and the -cells are roomy apartments with real windows. The guests do not dine in -solitude; they are marched together to the dining-hall, and there -nourished, not with skilly or stew, with its hunk of bread and a pewter -platter, but with meat and plum-duff, sometimes fish, greenstuffs, and -cocoa. This, of course, in peace-time; the menu has no doubt suffered -variations in these latter days. The tables are covered. After the meal -the good fellows may sit for a few minutes and enjoy a pipe of tobacco, -even as the respectable citizen. A fair number of marks for good -behaviour carries with it the privilege of smoking after the night meal -as well, and one of the most severe punishments is the docking of this -smoking privilege. - -Also, a canteen is provided. Not only do they wallow in luxury; they are -paid for it. Twopence a day is given to each prisoner for exceptional -conduct, and one penny of this may be spent at the canteen. This is by -way of payment for work done--the work being of a much lighter kind than -that given to ordinary "second division" prisoners. In cases where -conduct fulfils every expectation of the authorities, the good lad is -rewarded, every six months, with a stripe. Six stripes entitle the -holder to a cash reward, half of which he may spend, the other half -being banked. The canteen sells sweets, mineral waters, cigarettes, -apples, oranges, nuts etc. Those inclined to the higher forms of -nourishment may use the library. There are current magazines, novels of -popular "healthy" writers (it would be unfair to give their names; they -might not appreciate the epithet), and--uplifting thought--the works of -Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and some French highbrows. - -On special occasions bioscope shows of an educative kind are given. Oh, -I do love my virtue, but I wish I were a habitual criminal. Why wasn't I -born in Stepney, and born a vagabond? - -Whether the prison is still running on the old lines I know not. Most -likely the British habitual convicts have been served with ejectment -notices to make room for German prisoners. I wouldn't wonder. - - - - -THE KIDS' MAN - - -"I'll learn yeh, y' little wretch!" - -"Oowh! Don't--don't!" - -The lady, savagely wielding a decayed carpet-beater, bent over the -shrinking form of the child--a little storm of short skirts and black -hair. Her arm ached and her face steamed, but she continued to shower -blows wherever she could get them in, until suddenly the storm limply -subsided into a small figure which doubled up and fell. - -A step sounded in the doorway, and the lady looked up, frayed at the -edges and panting. A small, slight man, in semi-official dress, stood -just inside the room, which gave directly on to a byway of Homerton. - -"Na then, Feet--mind yer dirty boots on my carpet, cancher? What's -the----" - -"N.S.P.C.C.," replied Feet. He stooped over the child, lifted her, and -set her on a slippery sofa. "Had my eye on you for some time. Thought -there were something dicky with this child." - -"'Ere, look 'ere--I mean, can't 'er muvver 'it 'er----" - -"Steady, please. Let me warn you----" - -The lady threatened with glances, but Kids' Man met them. - -She fumed. "Ow! You waltz in, do yeh? Well, strikes me yeh'll waltz out -quicker'n yeh came in. 'Ere--Arfer!" Her raucous voice scraped up the -narrow stairway leading from the room, and in answer came a misty voice, -suggesting revelries by night. The lady roared again: "Ar-ferr! Get up -an' come daown. 'Ere's a little swab insultin' yer wife! Kids' Man -insultin' yer wife!" - -Kids' Man made no move, but stood over the sofa with sober face, -ministering to the heavily breathing bundle. Overhead came bumps and a -prayer for delivery from women. - -Then on the lower step of the stairway appeared a symbol of Aurora in -velveteen breeches and a shirt of indeterminate colour. His braces hung -dolefully at the rear as he bleared on the situation. His furry head -moved from side to side. "Wodyeh want me t'do?" - -"Cosh 'im! Insultin' yer wife!" - -He stared. Then his lip moved and he grinned. He hitched up his -trousers, belted them with braces, and expectorated on both hands with -gusto. "Git aout, else I'll split yer faice!" - -No answer. "Righto!" He descended from the stair, and, hands down, fists -closed, chin protruded, advanced on the bending Inspector with that -slow, insidious movement proper to street-fighters. "Won't git aout, -woncher? Grrr--yeh!" - -Kids' Man looked up and met him with a steady stare. But the stare -annoyed him, so he lifted up his fist and smote Kids' Man between the -eyes. Then things happened. He towered over the Inspector. "Want -another?" The Inspector lifted a short and apparently muscleless arm. - -Bk! Aurora reeled as the fist met his jaw, and was followed by a swift -one under the ear. For a moment astonishment seemed to hold him as he -bleared at the slight figure; then he seemed about to burst with wrath; -then he became a cold sportsman. The wife screamed for aid. - -"Aoutside--come on!" He shoved Kids' Man before him into the walk, -which, torpid a moment ago, now flashed with life and movement. Quickly -the auditorium was filled with a moist, unlovely crowd of sloppy rags -and towzled heads. While Kids' Man ministered to his nose, Arfer hitched -his trousers, fingered his shirt-sleeves, and talked in staccato to his -seconds, about a dozen in number. The crowd grunted and grinned. It -seemed evident that Kids' Man was about to get it in the neck. One or -two went to his side as he quietly turned back his sleeves, not for -purposes of encouragement, but merely in order to preserve the correct -niceties of the scrap. - -A light tap on the body from either party, and then more things -happened. "Go it, Arfer, flatten 'im! Cosh 'im! Rip 'im back, Arfer. -Give 'im naughty-naughty, Arfer!" - -But, as the crowd scraped and shuffled this way and that, they gave a -panicky clearing to a spry retreat by Kids' Man. He was done for; Arfer -was chasing him. They capered and chi-iked. Then, with a smart turn, he -landed beautifully on the point, and sent the pursuing Arfer flat to the -ground. The crowd murmured and oathfully exhorted Arfer to fink what he -was doin' of. Flatten the Kids' Man--that was his job. They met again, -and this time the Society received one on the mouth and another on the -nose. He sat heavily down, and his seconds flashed wet handkerchiefs. -The crowd cheered. "'Ad enough?" - -But with a sudden spurt he came up again. His right landed on Arfer's -nose, a natty upper-cut followed it. He got in another with his right, -and pressed his man. The lady screamed, and disregarding the ethics of -the ring, splurged in and seized the Society's coat-tails. But the crowd -begged her to desist. Then the child, who, with the toughness of her -class, had found her legs again, flitted fearfully about the fringe of -the crowd. - -"Wade in, mister! 'It the old woman--fetch 'er a swipe across the -snitch!" - -Now Kids' Man began to take an interest in the affair. Dodging a -swinging blow of his lumbering opponent, he got in a half-arm jab. They -closed, and embraced each other, and swayed, and the crowd chanted "Dear -Old Pals." For a moment they strained; then Kids' Man lifted his enemy -bodily held him, and with a peculiar twist dropped him. He lay still.... - -A murmur of wonder swelled quickly to a broad roar. The crowd surged in, -squirming and hustling. For a moment it seemed that Kids' Man would get -torn. It was just a hair's-breadth question between lynching and -triumphal chairing. The sporting spirit prevailed, and: "Raaay! Good on -yeh, mate! Well done th' S'ciety!" The lads swung in and gathered -admiringly around the victor, who tenderly caressed a damaged beetroot -of a face, while half a dozen helpers impeded each other's efforts to -render first aid to the prostrate Arfer. - -"Where's the blankey twicer? Lemme git 'old of 'im. Lemme git 'old of -'im!" implored the lady. But she was no longer popular, and they hustled -her aside, so that in impotent rage she smote her prostrate husband with -her foot for failing to uphold her honour before a measly little Kids' -Man what she could have torn in two wiv one hand. - -"Well, 'e's gotter nerve, ain't 'e?" - -"Firs' chap ever I knew stand up t'old Arfer. Fac'!" - -"Yerce--'e's--e's gotter nerve!" - -"Tell yeh what I say, boys--three cheers for th' Kids' Man!" - -And as the bruised and discoloured Kids' Man gripped the hand of Orphan -Dora and led her, brave with new importance, from the Walk to -headquarters, a round of beery cheering made sweet music in their rear. - -"Well, fancy a little chap like that.... Well, 'e's gotter blasted -nerve!" - - * * * * * - -The Kids' Man. That is his title--used sometimes affectionately and -sometimes bitterly. He is the children's champion, and often he is met -with curses, and that plea of parenthood which is supposed to justify -all manner of gross and unnameable abominations: "Can't a farver do what -he likes wiv his own child?" - -The Society employs two hundred and fifty Inspectors, whose work is to -watch over the welfare of the children in their allotted district. But, -since most ill-treatment takes place behind closed doors, it is -difficult for an outsider to obtain direct evidence, and neighbours, -even when they know that children are being starved and daily tortured, -are shy of lodging information, lest it may lead to the publicity of the -police-court and the newspapers, and subsequently to open permanent -enmity from the people next whom they have to live. - -The Kids' Man is usually an old Army or Navy man, accustomed to making -himself heard, and able to hold his own. The chief qualities for such a -post are: a real love of children; tact and knowledge of men; and -ability to deal with a hostile reception. It is by no means pleasant, as -you have seen, to pay a warning visit to a house up a narrow alley, -whose inhabitants form something of a clan or freemasonry lodge. - -The motto of the Society, however, is persuasion. Prosecutions are -extremely distasteful, and are only used when all other means have -failed. In any case that comes to the Inspector's knowledge, his first -thought is the children's well-being. If they are being starved, he -provides them with food, clothes, bedding and baths, or sees that the -parish does so without any of the delays incident to parish charity. -Then he has a quiet talk with the parents, and gives a warning. Usually -this is enough. In cases where the neglect is due to lack of work, he is -sometimes an employment agency, and finds work for the father. But, if -necessary, there are more warnings, and then, with great reluctance, an -appearance in court is called for. - -Cruelty is of two kinds--active and passive. The passive cruelty is the -cruelty of neglect--lack of proper food, clothing, sanitation, etc. The -other kind--the active cruelty of a diabolical nature--comes curiously -enough, not so much from the lower, but from the upper classes. It is -seldom that the rough navvy is deliberately cruel to his children; but -Inspectors can tell you some appalling stories of torture inflicted on -children by leisured people of means and breeding. Among their -convictions are doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and many women of position. - -There was one terrible case of a woman in county society--you will -remember her Cornish name--who had been guilty of atrocious cruelty to a -little girl of twelve. The Kids' Man called. The woman maintained that a -mother had a perfect right to correct her own child. She called the -child and fondled it to prove that rumour of tortures was wrong. But the -Kids' Man knows children; and the look in the child's eyes told him of -terrorizing. He demanded a medical examination. - -The case was proved in court. A verdict of "Guilty" was given. And the -punishment for this fair degenerate--£50 fine! The punishment for the -Kids' Man was a kind of social ostracism. There lies the difficulty of -the work. The woman's position had saved her. - -The Kids' Man needs to have his eyes open everywhere and at every time -for signs of suffering among the little ones. And often, where a father -won't listen to advice from him, he is found amenable to suggestions -from Mrs. Inspector. - -In every big town in this country you will find the N.S.P.C.C. bureau, -but, in spite of their efforts, too much cruelty is going on that might -be stopped if the British people, as a race, were not too fond of -"minding their own business" and shutting their eyes to everyday evils. - -If you still think England a Christian and enlightened country, you had -better accompany an N.S.P.C.C. man on his daily round. Before you do so, -inspect the record at their offices. Read the verbatim reports of some -of their cases. Look at their "museum" which Mr. Parr, the secretary, -will show you; a museum more hideous than any collection of inquisition -relics or than anything in the Tower. You will then know something of -the hideous conditions of child-life in "this England of ours," and you -will be prepared for what you shall see on your tour with the Kids' Man. - - - - -CROWDED HOURS - - -What does the Cockney's mind first register when, far from home, he -visualizes the London that he loves with the casual devotion of his -type? To the serious tourist London is the shrine of England's history; -to the ordinary artist, who sees life in line and colour, it is a city -of noble or delicate "bits"; to the provincial it is a playground; to -the business man a market; but to the Cockney it is one big club, -odourous of the goodly fellowship that blossoms from contact with -human-kind. - -"Far from the madding crowd" may express the longings of the modern -Simeon Stylites, but your Cockney is no Simeon. He doesn't pray to be -put upon an island where the crowds are few. The thicker the crowd, the -more elbows that delve into his ribs, the hotter the steam of -human-kind, the happier he is. Far from the madding crowd be blowed! -Man's place, he holds, is among his fellows; and he sniffs with contempt -at this widespread desire to escape from other people. To him it is a -sign of an unhealthy mind, if not pure blasphemy. - -So, when he thinks of London, he does not think of a city of palaces, or -serene architectural triumphs; of a huckster's mart or a playground. At -the word "London" he sees people: the crowds in the Strand, in Walworth -Road, Lavender Hill, Whitechapel Road, Camden Town High Street. - -Your moods may be various, and London will respond. You may work, you -may idly dream away the hours, or you may actively enjoy yourself in -play; but if you wish that supreme enjoyment--the enjoyment of other -people--then London affords opportunities in larger measure than any -city that I know. - -I discovered the magic and allure of crowds when I was fourteen years -old and worked as office-boy in those filthy alleys marked in the Postal -Directory as "E.C." Streets and crowds became my refreshment and -entertainment then, and my palate is not yet blunted to their savour. I -do not want the flowery mead or the tree-covered lane or the -insect-ridden glade--at least, not for long; and I hate that dreadful -hollow behind the little wood. Give me six o'clock in the evening and a -walk from the City to Oxford Circus, through the soft Spring or the -darkling Autumn, with festive feet whispering all around you, and your -heart filled with that grey-green romance which is London. - -Once out of Newgate Street and across Holborn Viaduct I was happy, for I -was, so to speak, in a foreign country; so wholly different were the -people of Holborn from the people of Cheapside. The crowds of the City -had always to me, a mean, craven air about them. They walked homeward -with lagging steps and worn faces. They seemed always preoccupied with -paltry problems. They carried the stamp of their environment: a dusty -market-place, in which things made by more adept hands and brains are -passed from wholesale place to wholesale place with sorry bargaining on -the odd halfpenny. - -But West and West Central were a pleasuance of the finer essences, and -involuntarily body and soul assumed there a transient felicity of gait. -One walked and thought suavely. There were noble shops, brilliant -theatres, dainty restaurants, highways whose sole business was pleasure, -rent with gay lights and oh! so many delightful people. At restaurant -and theatre doors one might pause pensively and touch finger-tips, as it -were, with rose-leaf grace and beauty and fine comradeship; a refreshing -exercise after encounters with the sordid and the uncouth in Gracechurch -Street. Then, when the hoofs clattered and the motors hooted and the -whistles blew, and streets were drenched with festal light and festal -folk, I was, I felt, abroad. Figure to yourself that you are walking -through the streets of Teheran, or Stamboul, or Moscow, surrounded by -strange bazaars and people who seem to have stepped from some book of -magic so far removed are they from your daily interests. So did I feel -as I walked down Piccadilly. It was suffocating to think that there were -so many streets to explore, so many types to meet and to know. I wanted -then to make heaps and heaps of friends--not, I must confess, for -friendship--but just for the sake of meeting people who did interesting -and gracious things, and for the sake of knowing that I _had_ a host of -friends. The plashing of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, the lights -of the Alhambra and Empire seen through the green trees of Leicester -Square, the procession of 'buses along Holborn and Oxford Streets, the -alluring teashops of Piccadilly and the scornful opulence of the -hotels--these things sank into me and became part of me. - -My way to the City lay through Leicester Square, and the morning crowd -in that quarter bears for me still the same charm. On a bright Spring -day it might be Paris. There is a sense of space and sparkle about it. -The little milliners' girls, in piquant frocks, evoke memories of -Louise, and the crowding curls on their cheeks waft a perfume of -youth-time lyrics, chiming softly against the more strident and -repulsively military garb of the girl porters and doorkeepers. The -cleaners, bustling about the steps of the music-halls, throw -adumbrations of entertainment on the morning streets. People are -leisurely busy in an agreeable way--not the huckstering E.C. way. - -In Piccadilly Circus there is the same sense of light and song among the -crowds emerging from the Tube. The shops are decked in all the colours -of the Maytime, and not one little workgirl but pauses to throw a mute -appeal to the posturing silks and laces and pray that the lily-wristed, -wanton damsel of Fortune will turn a hand in her direction. - -But in the City, as I have said, there is little of this delight to be -found, either at morning, noon or night. The typical crowd of this -district may be seen at London Bridge, where, from eight to half-past -ten in the morning and from half-past five to half-past seven in the -evening, the dispirited toilers swarm to or from work. Indeed, it is not -a crowd: it is a _cortège_, marching to the obsequies of hope and fear. -It is a funeral march of marionettes. Here are no gay colours; no -smiles; no persiflage. All is sombre. Even the typists and the little -workgirls make no effort towards bright raiment; all is dingy and -soiled, not with the clean dirt that hangs about the barges and wharves -on the river, but with the mustiness of old ledgers and letter-files. -Listless in the morning and taciturn in the evening are these people; -and to watch them for an hour from the windows of the Bridge House Hotel -is to suffer an attack of spiritual dyspepsia. For, among them, are men -who have crossed that bridge twice daily for thirty years, walking -always on the same side, always at the same pace, and arriving at the -other end at precisely the same minute. There are men who began that -daily journey with bright boyish faces, clean collars, and their first -bowler hats, brave with the importance of working in the City. Their -hearts were fired with dreams and ambition. They had heard tales of -office-boys who, by industry, had been taken eventually into -partnership. They received their first rise. Later, they achieved the -romantic riches of thirty shillings a week. They made the acquaintance -of a girl in their suburban High Street. They married. And now, at -forty-five, all ambition gone, they are working in the same murky corner -of the same office, and maintaining wife and child on three pounds a -week. Their trousers are frayed and bag at the knees. Their coats are -without nap or grace. Two collars a week suffice. Gone are the shining -dreams. They have "settled down," without being conscious of the fact, -and will make that miserable journey, with other sombre and silent -phantoms, until the end. Verily, the London Bridge crowd of respectables -is the most tragic of all London crowds, and the bridge itself a _via -dolorosa_. - -I do not know why work in the City should produce a more deadening -effect on the souls of the workers than work in other quarters, but the -fact that it does is recognized by all students of Labour conditions. I -have worked in all quarters, and have noticed a curious change of -outlook when I moved from the City to Fleet Street, or from Fleet -Street to Piccadilly. You shall notice it, too, in the faces of the -lunch-time crowds. East of St. Paul's, the note is apathy. Coming -westward, just to Fleet Street, you perceive a change. Here boys and -girls, men and women, seem to take an interest in things; one -understands that they like their work. They do not regard it as a mere -routine, to be dragged through somehow until the clock releases them. - -A similar study in crowd psychology awaits you at the Tube stations in -the early hours of the evening, when the rush is on. With elbows wedged -into your ribs, and strange hot breaths pouring down your neck, you need -all the serenity you have stored against such contingencies; and the -attitude of the other people about you can mitigate your distress or -enhance it. The City and South London crowd is not the kind of crowd -that can bear its own troubles cheerfully, or help others to bear -theirs. I would never wish to go on a day's holiday with any of its -people. Their composite frame of mind is one of weak anger, expressive -of "Why isn't Something Done? What's the use of going on like this?" - -More comely is the St. James's Park or Westminster crowd. From five to -half-past six these stations receive a steady stream of sweet and merry -little girls from the mushroom Government Departments that have spawned -all about this quarter. It is girls, girls, girls, all the way, with the -feeble and the aged of the male species toiling behind. - -On the Bakerloo you find a crowd that is--well, "rorty" is the only -word. The people here are mostly southbound for the Elephant and Castle; -and you know the Elephant and Castle and its warm, impetuous life. There -are bold youths who have not fallen, like their fathers, to the cajolery -of a collar-and-cuff job in the City, but have taken up the work that -offers the best pecuniary reward. Grimy youths they are, but full of -vitality, and they pour down the staircase in a Niagara of humanity. - -An excellent centre for observing the varying moods of the evening crowd -is Villiers Street, that gentle slope from which you may reach Charing -Cross Station, the Hampstead Tube, the District Railway, or the -Embankment trams. It is a finely mixed company, for, as any Londoner -will tell you, the residents of the hundred suburbs differ from one -another in manner, accent and appearance, even as the natives of -different continents. Those who are using the Hampstead Tube are -sharply marked from those who are taking the Embankment car to Clapham -Junction; while those who are journeying on the South-Eastern to Croydon -have probably never heard of Upton Park, whither the District will carry -others. There are well-dressed people and ill-dressed people; some who -are going home to soup, fish, a _soufflé_ and coffee, with wine and -liqueurs; and some who are going home to "tea," at about eight -o'clock--bread-and-margarine and bloater paste, with a pint of tea, or, -occasionally, a bit of tripe and onions. There are people in a mad -hurry, and others who move in aloof idleness. And above them all stand -the stalwart Colonials, waiting until 6.30, when the bars shall open, -airily inspecting the troops of girls and comparing notes. - -"Say now, jes' watch here. Here comes a real Fanny." - -"Ah, gwan. I ain' got no time for Fannies. I finished wid 'em. Gimme -beer, every time." - -I have often wanted to make a song of Villiers Street, but I have never -been able to catch just the essence of its atmosphere. I am sure, -though, that the modern orchestra offers opportunities for one of our -new composers to embrace it in an overture. No effort has been made, so -far as I know, to interpret in music the noisy soul of the London -crowds. Elgar's "Cockaigne" overture and Percy Grainger's "Handel in the -Strand" were both retrospective in spirit, and the real thing yet -remains to be done. It has been done on the Continent by Suppé -("Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna"), by Sibelius in his "Finlandia," -by Massenet in his "Southern Town," and by Dvorák in "Carneval Roman." I -await with eagerness a "Morning, Noon and Night at Charing Cross," -scored by a born Cockney. - - - - -SATURDAY NIGHT - - -The origins of Saturday night, as a social institution, are obscure. No -doubt a little research would discover them to the earnest seeker, but I -am temperamentally averse from anything like research. It is tedious in -process and disappointing in result. Successful research means grasping -at the reality and dropping the romance. - -The outstanding fact about Saturday night is that it is an exclusively -British institution. Neither America nor the Continent knows its -precious joys. It is one of the few British institutions that reconcile -me to being an islander. It is a festival that is observed with the same -casual ritual in the London slums and in Northumberland mining villages; -in Scottish hills and in the byways of the Black Country; in Camden Town -High Street and in the hamlets of the Welsh marches. Certainly, so long -as my aged elders can carry their memories, and the memories of their -fathers before them, Saturday night has been a festival recognized in -all homely homes. Strange that it has only once been celebrated in -literature. - -It is, as it were, a short grace before the meal of leisure offered by -the Sabbath; a side-dish before the ample banquet; a trifling with the -olives of sweet idleness. On Saturday night the cares of the week are, -for a space, laid aside, and men and women gather with their kind for -amiable chatter and such mild conviviality as the times may afford. Then -the bonds of preoccupation are loosed, and men escape for dalliance with -the lighter things of life. Then the good gossips in town and country -take their sober indulgence in the social amenities. In village street, -or raucous town highway, they will pause between shops to greet this or -that neighbour and discuss affairs of mutual concern. - -On Saturday night is kept the festival of the String Bag, one of those -many rigid feasts of the people that find no place in the Kalendar of -the Prayer Book. Go where you will about the country on this night, and -you will witness the celebration of this good domestic saint by the -cheerful and fully choral service of Shopping. Go to East Street -(Walworth Road); to St. John's Road (Battersea); to Putney High Street; -to Stratford Broadway; to Newington Butts; to Caledonian Road; to Upper -Street (Islington); to Norton-Folgate; to Kingsland Road; to Salmon -Lane (Limehouse); to Mare Street (Hackney); to the Electric Avenue -(Brixton); to Powis Street (Woolwich); to the great shopping centres of -provincial cities or to the easier market-places of the rural district, -and you will find this service lustily in progress; the shops lit with a -fresh glamour for this their special occasion. You will taste a -something in the air--a sense of well-being, almost of carnival--that -marks this night from other nights of the week. You will see Mother -hovering about the shops and stalls, her eye peeled for the elusive -bargain, while Father, or one of the children, stands away off with the -bag; and when the goodwife has achieved all that she set out to do, and -the string bag is distended like an overfed baby, then comes the -crowning joy of the feast, when the shoppers slip together into the -private bar of the "Green Dragon" or the "White Horse," and compare -notes with other Saturday-nighters and condemn the beer. - -Saturday night is also, in millions of homes, Bath Night; another of the -pious functions of this festival; and for this ceremony the attendance -of the heads of the household is compulsory. Then the youngsters, -according to their natures, howl with delight or alarm as their turn -for the tub approaches. They will be scrubbed by Mother and dried by -Father; and when the whole brood is well and truly bathed and packed off -to bed, the elders will depart with the string bag, and perchance, if -shopping be expeditiously accomplished, take it, well-filled, to the -second house of the local Empire or Palace. - -Do you not remember--unless you were so unfortunate as to be brought up -in what are called well-to-do surroundings--do you not remember the -tingling delight that was yours when, to ensure correct behaviour during -the week, the prospect was dangled before you of going shopping on -Saturday night? Many Saturday nights do I recall, chiefly by association -with these shopping expeditions, when I was permitted to carry the -string bag; and the shopping expeditions again are recalled through the -agency of smell. Never does my memory work so swiftly as when assisted -by the nose; I am a bit of a dog in that way. When I catch the hearty -smell of a provision shop, I leap back twenty-five years and I see the -tempestuous Saturday-evening lights of Lavender Hill from the altitude -of three-foot-six; and I remember how I would catalogue shop smells in -my mind. There were the solemn smell of the furniture shop; the -wholesome smell of the oilshop; the pungent smell of the chemist's; the -potent smell of the "Dog and Duck", where I received my weekly -heart-cake; the stiff smell of the linen-drapers'; the overpowering -odour of the boot-shop, and the aromatic perfume of the grocer's; all of -which, in one grand combination, present the smell of Saturday night: a -smell as sharp and individual as the smell of Sunday morning or the -smell of early-closing afternoon in the suburbs. If Rip van Winkle were -to awake in any town or village on Saturday night, he would need no -calendar to name for him the day of the week: the smell, the aspect, and -the temper of the streets would surely inform him. - -But lately Saturday night has come under control, and the severe hand of -authority has wrenched away the most of its delight. Not now may the -String Baggers express their individuality in shopping. Having -registered for necessary comestibles at a given shop, they enjoy no more -the sport of bargain-hunting, or of setting rival tradesmen in cheerful -competition. Not now may the villagers crowd the wayside station for -their single weekly railway trip to the neighbouring town, where was -larger scope for the perfect shopper than the native village could -afford. No more may the earnest London Saturday-nighter journey by tram -or bus to outlying markets because the quality of the meat was better in -that district than in his own, or the price of eggs a penny -lower--though, if the truth be known, these facts were mostly proffered -as excuse for the excursion. No more do residents of Brixton travel to -Clapham Junction for their Sunday stores, or the elegant ones of -Streatham slink guiltily to Walworth Road. No more is Hampstead seen -chaffering at the stalls of Camden Town, or Bayswater struggling -gallantly about the shops of the Edgware Road and Kilburn. - -The main function of Saturday night has died a dismal death. Still, the -social side remains. Shopping of a sort still has to be done. One may -still meet one's cronies in the market streets, and compare the bulk and -quality of one's ration of this and that, and take a draught of insipid -ale at the "Blue Pigeon", and talk of the untowardness of the times. But -half of the savour is gone out of the week's event; and it is well that -the Scots peasant made his song about it before it was controlled. - - - - -RENDEZVOUS - - -Although London possesses a thousand central points suitable for a -street rendezvous, Londoners seem to have decided by tacit agreement to -use only five of these for their outdoor appointments. They are: Charing -Cross Post Office, Leicester Square Tube, Piccadilly Tube, under the -Clock at Victoria, and Oxford Circus Tube; and I have never known my -friends telephone me for a meeting and fix a rendezvous outside this -list. Indeed, I can now, by long experience, place the habits and -character of casual acquaintances who wish to meet me, from their choice -among these places. - -Thus, a Charing Cross Post Office appointment means a pleasure -appointment. Here, at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, wait the bright -girls and golden boys, their faces, like living lamps, shining through -the cloud of pedestrians as a signal for that one for whom they wait. -And, though you be late in keeping the appointment, you may be certain -that the waiting party will be in placid mood. There is so much to -distract and delight you on this small corner. There are the bustle of -the Strand and the stopping buses; the busy sweep of Trafalgar Square, -so spacious that its swift stream of traffic suggests leisure; the hot -smell of savouries rising from the kitchens of Morley's Hotel; and the -cynical amusement to be drawn from a study of the meetings and -encounters of other waiting folk. Hundreds of appointments have I kept -at Charing Cross Post Office. I have met soldier-friends there, after an -absence of three years. I have met cousins and sisters and aunts, and -damsels who stood not in any of these relations. And I have met the Only -One there, many, many times; often happily; often in trepidation; and -sometimes in lyrical ecstasy, as when a quarrel and a long parting have -received the benison of reconciliation. Now, I can never pass the Post -Office without a tremor, for its swart, squat exterior is, for me, -bowered with delicious thrills. - -Never keep an appointment under the Clock at Victoria. A meeting here is -fatal to the sweetness of the intercourse that is to follow. Always he -or she who arrives first will be peevish or irate by the time the second -party turns up; for Victoria Station, with its lowering roof, affects -you with a frightful sense of being shut in and smothered. Turn how you -will, sharply or gently, and you cannon with some petulant human, and, -retiring apologetically from him, you impale your kidney region on some -fool's walking-stick or umbrella. That fool asks you to look where -you're going, and then he gets his from a truck-load of luggage. You -laugh--bitterly. After three minutes of waiting in that violet-tinted -beehive, you loathe your fellow-man; you loathe the entire animal -kingdom. You "come over in one of them prickly 'eats." Your nerves flap -about you like bits of bunting, and the new spring suit that set in such -fine lines seems fit only for scaring birds. Then your friend arrives, -and God help him if he's late! - -I have watched these Victoria appointments many times while waiting for -my train. The first party to the contract arrives, glances at the clock, -and strolls to the bookstall, cheerfully swinging stick or umbrella. He -strolls back to the clock, glances, compares it with his watch. Hums a -bar or two. Coughs. A flicker of dismay shades his face. Then a -handicapped runner for the 6.15 crashes violently against him in -avoiding a platoon of soldiers, and knocks his hat over his eyes and -his stick ten yards away. When the great big world ceases turning and he -finds a voice, the offender has gone. The next glance he shoots at the -clock is choleric. A slight prod from an old lady who wishes to find the -main booking-office produces a spout of fury; and the comedy ends with a -gestic departure, in the course of which he gets a little of his own -back on other of his species. His final glance at the clock is charged -with the pure essence of malevolence. - -How much more gracious is an appointment in the great resounding hall of -Euston, though this is mainly a travellers' rendezvous and is seldom -used for general appointments. Here, cloistered from the rush and roar -of the station proper, yet always with a cheerful sense of loud -neighbourhood, the cathedral mood is induced. You become benign, Gothic. -There are pleasant straw seats. There are writing-tables with real ink. -There are noble photographs of English beauty-spots, and--oh, heaps of -dinky little models of railway trains and Irish Channel steamers which -light up when you drop pennies in the slots. Vast, serene and episcopal -is this rendezvous--it always reminds me of the Athenæum Club; and, -however protracted your vigil, it showers upon you something of its -quality; so that, though your friend be twenty minutes late, you still -receive him affably, and talk in conversational tones of this and of -that, instead of roaring the obvious like a baseball fan, as Victoria's -hall demands. You may even make subtle epigrams at Euston, and your -friend will take their point. I'd like to hear someone try to convey a -fine shade of meaning in Victoria. - -Oxford Circus Tube I register as the meeting-ground of the suburban -flapper and the suburban shopping mamma. Its note is little swinging -skirts, and artful silk stockings, and shining curls, that dance to the -sober music of the matron's rustling satin. The waiting dames carry -those dinky little brown-paper bags, stamped with the name of some -Oxford Street draper, at whose contents the idler may amuse himself by -guessing--a ribbon, a camisole, a flower-spray for a hat, gloves, or -those odd lengths of cloth and linen which women will buy--though Lord -knows to what esoteric use they put them. Hither come, too, those lonely -people who, through the medium of "Companionship" columns or -Correspondence Circles, have found a congenial soul. Why they choose -Oxford Circus I don't know, but they are always to be seen there. You -may recognize the type at first glance. They peer and scan closely every -arrival, for, though correspondence has introduced them to the other -soul, they have not yet seen the body, and they are searching for -someone to fit the description that has been supplied; as thus: "I am of -medium height and shall be wearing a black hat, trimmed with Michaelmas -daisies, and a fawn macintosh," or "I am tall, and shall be wearing a -grey suit and black soft hat and spectacles, and will carry a copy of -the _Buff Review_ in my hand." One is pleased to speculate on the result -of the meeting. Is it horrible disillusion, or does the flint find its -fellow-flint and produce the true spark? Do they thereafter look happily -upon Oxford Circus Tube, or pass it with a shudder? - -The crowd that hovers about the Leicester Square Tube entrances affords -little matter for reflection. It is so obvious. It is so Leicester -Square. It alternately snarls and leers. It never truly smiles; it is so -tired of the smiling business. The loud garb of the women tells its own -tale. For the rest, there are bejewelled black men, a few Australian and -Belgian soldiers, and a few disgruntled and "shopless" actors. I never -accept an appointment at Leicester Square Tube. It puts me off the lunch -or dinner or whatever business is the object of the meeting. It is -ignoble, squalid, with an air of sickly decency about it. - -A few yards further Westward, at Piccadilly Tube, the atmosphere -changes. One tastes the ampler ether and diviner air. It does not, like -Charing Cross Post Office, sing April and May, but rather the mellowness -of August and September. Good solid people meet here; people -"comfortably off," as the phrase goes; people who have lived largely, -but have not lost their capacity for deliberate enjoyment. At meal-times -they gather thickly; quiet, dainty women; obese majors; Government -officials; and that nondescript type that wears shabby, well-cut clothes -with an air of prosperity and breeding. You may almost name the first -words that will be spoken when a couple meet: "Well, where shall we go? -Trocadero, Criterion--or Soho?" There is little hilarity; people don't -"let themselves go" at this rendezvous. They are out for entertainment, -but it is mild, well-ordered entertainment. The note of the crowd is, -"If a thing is worth doing at all, it's worth doing well," even if the -thing is only a hurried lunch or a curfew-rationed theatre. - -Classifying London's meeting-places by their moral atmospheres, I would -mark Charing Cross Post Office as juvenile; Oxford Circus Tube as youth; -Leicester Square Tube as senility; Piccadilly Tube as middle-age; the -Great Hall at Euston as reverend seniority; and Victoria Station--well, -Victoria Station should get a total-rejection certificate. - - - - -TRAGEDY AND COCKNEYISM - - -The Cockney is popularly supposed to stand for the fixed type of the -blasphemous and the cynical in his speech and attitude to life. He is -supposed to jump with hobnailed boots on all things and institutions -that are, to others, sacred. He is supposed to admit no solemnities, no -traditional rites or services, to the big moments of life. - -This is wrong. The Cockney's attitude to life is perhaps more solemn -than that of any other social type, save when he is one of a crowd of -his fellows; and then arises some primitive desire to mock and destroy. -He will say "sir" to people who maintain their carriages or cars in his -own district; but on Bank Holidays, when he visits territories remote -from his home, he will roar and chi-ike at the pompous and the rich -wherever he sees it. - -But the popular theory of the Cockney is most effectively exploded when -he is seen in a dramatic situation or in some moment of emotional -stress. He does not then cry "Gorblimey" or "Comartovit" or some -current persiflage of the day; or stand reticent and monosyllabic, as -some superior writers depict him; but, from some atavistic cause, harks -back to the speech of forgotten Saxon forefathers. - -This trick you will find reflected in the melodrama and the cheap serial -story that are made for his entertainment. It is hostile to superior -opinion, but it is none the less true to say that melodrama does -endeavour to reflect life as it is. When the wronged squire says to his -erring son: "Get you gone; never darken my doors again," he is not -talking a particular language of melodrama. He may be a little out of -his part as a squire; that is not what a father of long social position -and good education would say to a scapegrace son; but it is what an -untaught town labourer would say in such a circumstance; and, as these -plays are written for him, the writers draw their inspiration from his -speech and manners. The programme allure of the Duke of Bentborough, -Lord Ernest Swaddling, Lady Gwendoline Flummery, and so on, is used -simply to bring him to the theatre. The scenes he witnesses, and the -scenes he pays to witness, show himself banishing his son, himself -forgiving his prodigal daughter, with his own attitudes and his own -speech. The illiterate do not quote melodrama; melodrama quotes them. - -Again and again this has been proved in London police-courts. When the -emotions are roused, the Cockney does not pick his words and alight -carefully on something he heard at the theatre last week; nor does he -become sullen and abashed. He becomes violently vocal. He speaks out of -himself. Although he seldom enters a church, the grip of the church is -so tightly upon him that you may, as it were, see its knuckles standing -in white relief when he speaks of solemn affairs. If you ask him about -his sick Uncle John, he will not tell you that Uncle John is dead, or -has "pegged out" or "snuffed it"; such phrases he reserves for reporting -the passing of Prime Ministers, Dukes and millionaires. He will tell you -that Uncle John has "passed away" or "gone home"; that it is a "happy -release"; and, between swigs at his beer, he will give you intimate, but -carefully veiled, details of his passing. He will never speak of the -elementary, universal facts of life without the use of euphemism. A -young unmarried mother is always spoken of as having "got into trouble." -It is never said that she is about to have a baby; she is "expecting." -He never reports that an acquaintance has committed suicide; he has -"done away with himself" or "made a hole in the water." - -At an inquest on a young girl in the Bermondsey district, the mother was -asked when last she saw her daughter. - -"A'Monday. And that was the last time I ever clapped eyes on her, as -Gawd is my witness." - -At another inquest on a Hoxton girl, a young railwayman was called as -witness. Having given his evidence, he suddenly rushed to the body, and -bent over it, and cried loudly:-- - -"Oh, my dove, my dear! My little blossom's been plucked away!" - -In a police-court maternity case, I heard the following from the mother -of the deserted girl, who had lost her case; "Ah, God! an' shall this -villain escape from his crime scot-free?" And in the early days of the -war a bereaved woman created a scene at an evening service in a South -London Church with this audible prayer: "Oh, Gawd, take away this Day of -Judgment from the people, fer the sake of Thy Son Jesus. Amen." - -Again, at Thames Police Court, during a case of theft against a boy of -seventeen, the father was called, and admitted to turning his son from -home when he was fifteen, because of his criminal ways. - -"Yerce, I did send 'im orf. An' never shall 'is foot cross my threshold -until 'e's mended 'is evil ways." - -The same reversion to passionate language may be found in many of the -unreported incidents of battle. I have heard of Cockneys, whose pals -were killed at their side, and of their comment on the affair in the -stress of the moment:-- - -"Old George! I loved old George better'n I loved anything in the world. -I'd 'ave give my 'eart's blood fer George." - -And the cry of a mother at the Old Bailey, when her son was sentenced to -death:-- - -"Oh, take me. Take my old grey 'airs. Let me die in 'is stead."-- - -And here is the extraordinary statement of a girl of fourteen, who, -tired of factory hours and home, ran away for a few days, and then would -not go back for fear of being whipped by her father. At the end of her -holiday she gave herself up to the police on the other side of London -from her home, and this was her statement to them:-- - -"Why can't I go where I want to? I don't do anybody any harm. I knew the -world was good. I got tired of all the monotony, an' the same old thing -every day, an' I wanted to get out. I am. Why bother me? I wonder why I -can't go out and do as I like, so long as I don't do no harm. I thought -the world was so big an' good, but in reality living in it is like being -in a cage. You can't do nothing in this world unless somebody else -consents." - -Strange wisdom from a child of fourteen, spoken in moments of terror -before uniformed policemen in that last fear of the respectable--the -police-station. But it is in such official places that the Cockney loses -the part he is for ever playing--though, like most of us, he is playing -it unconsciously--and becomes something strangely lifted from the airy, -confident materialist of his common moments. The educated man, on the -other hand, brought into court or into other dramatic surroundings, -ceases to be himself and begins to act. The Cockney, normally without -dignity, achieves it in dramatic moments, where the man of position and -dignity usually crumbles away to rubbish or ineptitude. - -Hence, only the wide-eyed writers of melodrama have successfully -produced the Cockney on the stage. True, they dress him in evening -clothes, and surround him with impossible butlers and footmen, but if -you want to probe the Cockney's soul, and cannot probe it at first-hand, -it is to melodrama and the cheap serial that you must turn; not to the -slum stories of novelists who live in Kensington or to the "low-life" -plays of condescending dramatists. - - - - -MINE EASE AT MINE INN - - -When everything in your little world goes wrong; when you can do nothing -right; when you have cut yourself while shaving, and it has rained all -day, and the taxis have splashed your collar with mud, and you receive -an Army notice, post-marked on the outer covering _Buy National War -Bonds Now_--in short, when you are fed up, what do you do? - -To each man his own remedy. I know one man who, in such circumstances, -goes to bed and reads Ecclesiastes; another who goes on an evening jag; -another who goes for a ten-mile walk in desolate country; another who -digs up his garden; another who reads school stories. But my own cure is -to board a London tram-car bound for the outer suburbs, and take mine -ease at a storied sixteenth-century inn. - -Where is this harbour of refuge? No, thank you; I am not giving it away. -I am too fearful that it may become popular and thereby spoiled. I will -only tell you that its sign is "The Chequers"; that it is a -low-pitched, rambling post-house, with cobbled coach-yard, and -ridiculous staircases that twist and wind in all directions, and rooms -where apparently no rooms could be; that it was for a while the G.H.Q. -of Charles the First; and that it is soaked in that ripe, substantial -atmosphere that belongs to places where companies of men have for -centuries eaten and drunken and quarrelled and loved and rejoiced. - -You talk of your galleried inns of Chester and Shrewsbury and Ludlow and -Salisbury, and your thousand belauded old-world villages of the West.... -Here, within a brief tram-ride of London, so close to the centre of -things that you may see the mantle of metropolitan smoke draping the -spires and steeples, is a place as rich in the historic thrill as any of -these show-places. - -But its main charm for me is the goodly fellowship and comfortable talk -to be had in the little smoking-room, decorated with original sketches -by famous black-and-white men who make it their week-end rendezvous. You -may be a newcomer at "The Chequers," but you will not long be lonely -unless your manner cries a desire for solitude. Its rooms are aglow with -all those little delights of the true inn that are now almost -legendary. One reads in old fiction and drama of noble inns and -prodigally hospitable landlords; but I have always found it difficult to -accept these pictures as truth. I have sojourned in so many old inns -about the country, and found little welcome, unless I arrived in a car -and ordered expensive accommodation. It was not until I spent a night at -"The Chequers" that I discovered an inn that might have been invented by -Fielding, and a landlord who is and who looks the true Boniface. - -I had missed the last car and the last train back to town. I wandered -down the not very tidy High Street, and called at one or two of the -hundred taverns that jostle one another in the street's brief length. -The external appearance of "The Chequers" promised at least a -comfortable bed, and I booked a room, and then wandered to the bar. I -felt dispirited, as I always do in inns and hotels; as though I were an -intruder with no friend in the world. I ordered a drink and looked round -the little bar. My company were a police-sergeant in uniform, a -horsey-looking man in brown gaiters, an elderly, saturnine fellow in -easy tweeds, a young fellow in blue overall--obviously an electrician's -mechanic--and a little, merry-faced chap with a long flowing moustache. -I scrutinized faces, and sniffed the spiritual atmosphere of each man. -It was the usual suburban bar crowd, and I assumed that I was in for a -dull time. The talk was all saloon-bar platitudes--_This was a Terrible -War. The rain was coming down, wasn't it? Yes, but the farmers could do -with it. Yes, but you could have too much of a good thing, couldn't you? -Ah, you could never rely on the English climate.... Three shillings a -pound they were. Scandalous. Robbery. Somebody was making some money out -of this war. Ah, there was a lot going on in Whitehall that the public -never heard about...._ So, clutching at a straw, I opened the local -paper, and read about A Pretty Wedding at St. Matthew's, and a -Presentation to Mr. Gubbins, and a Runaway Horse in the High Street, and -a---- - -Then came the felicitous shock. From the horsey man came words that -rattled on my ears like the welcome hoofs of a relief-party. - -"No, it wasn't Euripides, I keep telling you. It was Sophocles," he -insisted. "I know it was Sophocles. I got the book at home--in a -translation. And I see it played some time ago in town. Ask Mr. -Connaught here if I'm not right." He grew flushed as he argued his -rightness. I followed the direction of his nod. Mr. Connaught was the -disgruntled-looking man in tweeds. And Mr. Connaught set down his -whisky, fished in a huge well of a side-pocket, and produced--_OEdipus -Rex_ in the original Greek, and began to talk of it. - -I sank back, abashed at my too previous judgment. Here was a man who, -during the half-hour that I had been sitting there, had talked like a -grocer or a solicitor's clerk--of the obvious and in the obvious way. It -was he who had made the illuminating remarks that there was a lot going -on in Whitehall that we didn't know anything about, and that you could -never rely on the English climate. And now he was raving about -Sophocles, and chanting fragments to the assembled whisky-drinkers. -Tiring of Sophocles, he dived again into the pocket and produced -Aristophanes. - -The talk then became general. The constable, apparently annoyed at so -much Latin and Greek, thrust into the chatter a loud contention that -when a man had finished with English authors, then was time enough to go -to the classics. Give him Boswell's _Johnson_ and _Pepys' Diary_ and a -set of Dickens written in the language of his fathers, to keep on the -dressing-table, within easy reach of the bed, like. The electrician's -mechanic couldn't bother with novels; he was up to the neck just now in -Spencer and Häckel and Bergson, and if we hadn't read Bergson, then we -ought to: we were missing something. Then somehow the talk switched to -music, and there followed a dissertation by the police-sergeant on -ancient church music and the futility of grand opera, and names like -Palestrina and Purcell and Corelli were thrown about, with a cross-fire -of "Bitter, please, Miss Fortescue"--"Martell, please; just a splash of -soda--don't drown it"--"Have you tried the beer at the -'Hole-in-the-Wall?'--horrible muck"--"Come on--drink up, there, Fred; -you're very slow to-night." - -"D'you know this little thing by Sibelius?" asked the merry fellow; and -hummed a few bars from the _Thousand Seas_. - -"Ah, get away with yer moderns!" snapped the police-sergeant. "This -Debussy, Scriabine, Schonberg and that gang. Keep to the simplicities, I -say--Handel, Bach, Haydn and Gluck. Listen to this;" and he suddenly -drew back from the bar, lifted a mellow voice at full strength, and -delivered "Che Faro" from _Orfeo_; and then took a mighty swig at a pint -tankard and said that it had just that bite that you only get when it's -drawn from the wood. - -It took me some time to pull myself together and sort things out. I -wondered what I had stumbled upon: whether other pubs in this suburb -offered similar intellectual refreshment; whether all the local -tradesmen were bookmen and music-lovers; and how to reconcile the dreary -talk that I had first heard with the enthusiastic and individual -discourse that was now proceeding. I wondered whether it were a dream, -and how soon I should wake up. If it were real, I wondered if people -would believe me if I told them of it. - -But soon I dismissed all speculation, for by a happy chance I was drawn -into the circle. Some discussion having arisen on beer and its varying -quality, a member of the company produced a once-popular American -pamphlet, entitled _Ten Nights in a Bar-Room_; whereupon I handed round -a little brochure of my own, compiled, for private circulation, from -contributions by members of that London rambling Club, "The Blueskin -Gang," and entitled _Ten Bar-Rooms in a Night_. This pleased the -company, and I at once became popular and had to take my part in the -gigantic beer-drinking. Then the merry-faced little fellow slipped away, -and quickly returned to counter my move with an old calf-bound -seventeenth-century book, _The Malt-Worm's Guide_: a description of the -principal London taverns of the period, with notes as to the -representative patrons and the quality of the entertainment, material -and moral, offered by each establishment; every page adorned with -preposterous but captivating woodcuts. - -On my suggesting that "The Blueskin Gang" might compile a similar guide -on the London bars of to-day, each member of the company burst in with -material for such a work. We decided that it would be impossible to -follow the model of _The Malt-Worm's Guide_ for such a work, since the -London taverns of to-day are fast shedding their individual character. -Formerly, one might know certain houses as a printers' bar, a -journalists' bar, a lawyers', and so on. The "Cock," in Fleet Street, -remains a rendezvous for legal gentry, and the taverns between -Piccadilly and Curzon Street are still "used" by grooms and butlers; and -two Oxford Street bars are the unregistered headquarters of the -furniture trade. And do you know the "Steam Engine" in Bermondsey, the -haunt of the South-Eastern Railway men, where gather engine-drivers, -firemen, guards and other mighty travellers? A pleasant house, with just -that touch of uncleanliness that goes with what some people call low -company, and produces a harmony of rough living that is so attractive to -matey men. And the Burton they used to sell in old times--oh, boy--as my -American friends say--even to think of it gives you that gr-rand and -gl-lor-ious feelin'. - -But these places make the full list. The war has largely obliterated -fine distinctions. The taverns of the Strand and its side streets, once -the clubs of the lower Thespians, have become the rendezvous of Colonial -soldiers. The jewellers who once foregathered at the Monico, have been -driven out by French and Belgian military; and Hummum's, in Covent -Garden, into which you hardly dared enter unless you were a market-man, -has become anybody's property. - -While I named the taverns of central London and their pre-war character, -others of the company threw in details of obscure but highly-flavoured -houses in outlying quarters of the city to which their business had at -times occasioned them, with much inside information as to the special -drinks of each establishment and its regular frequenters. I saw at once -that such a work, if produced, would exceed the bulk of Kelly's Post -Office Directory, but the discussion, though of no practical value, gave -me a closer view of the idiosyncrasies of the company. The lover of -Sophocles liked loud, jostling bars, reeking with the odour of crowded -and violent humanity, where you truly fought for your drink; where no -voice could be heard unless your ear were close upon it, and where you -had barely room to crook your elbow: such bars as you find in the poorer -quarters, as seem, at first acquaintance, to be under the management of -the Sicilian Players. The electrician preferred a nice quiet house where -he could sit down--no doubt to think about Bergsonism. The musical -police-sergeant had no preferences in the matter of company or -surroundings; the quality of the beer was all his concern. The -horsey-looking man liked those large, well-kept, isolated suburban bars -where you might find but two or three customers with whom you could have -what he called a Good Old Talk About Things. - -At closing time I discovered that the little merry-faced fellow was the -host; indeed, I had placed him in some such capacity, for his face might -have been preserved on canvas as the universal type of the jovial -landlord. - -"You're staying here, aren't you? Come through to my room for a bit. -Unless you want to get off to bye-bye." - -I didn't want to get off to bye-bye. I wanted to know more of this -comic-opera inn. So I followed him to his private room, and I found it -walled with books--real books, such as were loved by Lamb--_The Anatomy -of Melancholy_, Walker's _Original_, _The Compleat Angler,_ an -Elizabethan Song-book, Descartes, Leopardi, Montaigne, and so on. The -piano in the corner bore an open volume of Mozart's Sonatas; and this -extraordinary Boniface, having "put the bar up," seated himself and -played Mozart and Beethoven and Schumann and Isolde's "Liebestod," and -morsels of Grieg, until three o'clock in the morning, when I climbed to -my room. - -On the way he showed me the King Charles room and the delightful -eighteenth-century mezzotints on the stair-case walls, and the secret -way from the first floor to the yard. From that night our friendship -began. I stayed there the following day and for two days more, and -pulled his books about, and roamed over the many rooms, and met the -company of my first night in the bar. - -I was charmed by the air of intimacy that belongs to that bar, deriving, -I think, from the sweet nature of the host. You may stay at popular inns -or resplendent hotels, and make casual acquaintance in the lounges, and -exchange talk; but it is impossible, in the huge cubic space of such -establishments, to come near to other spirits. You do not meet a man in -town and say: "What? You've stayed at the 'Royal York'? I've stayed -there too," and straightway develop a friendship. But you can meet a -stranger, and say: "What? You know 'The Chequers?' D'you know Jimmy?" -and you fall at once to discussing old Jimmy, the landlord, and you -admit the stranger to the secrets of your heart. - -Jimmy--I hope he won't mind my writing him down as Jimmy; you have only -to look at him to know that he cannot be James or Jim--Jimmy radiates -cheer; whether in his own inn or in other people's. Among his -well-smoked furniture and walls men talk freely and listen keenly. There -is no obscene reticence, no cunning reserve. Unpleasant men would be -miserable at "The Chequers"; they would seek some other biding-place -where self-revelation is kept within diplomatic bounds. - -Believe me, "The Mermaid" was not the end of the great taverns. What -things have we seen done and heard said at the bar of "The Chequers." -What famous company has gathered there on Sunday evenings, artists, -literary men, musicians, philosophers, entering into fierce argument and -vociferous agreement with the local stalwarts. In these troubled times -people are mentally slack. They readily accept mob opinion, to save -themselves the added strain of thinking; and eagerly adopt the attitude -that it is idle to concern oneself with intellectual affairs in these -days; so that there is now no sensible talk to be had in bar or club. -Wherefore, it is a relief to possess one place--and that an inn--where -one may be sure of finding company that will join with relish in serious -talk and put their whole lives in a jest. Such delight and refreshment -do I find at this inn, that scarcely a Saturday passes but I board the -car and glide to "The Chequers" in--well, just beyond the London Postal -District. - - - - -RELICS - - -The turning-out of the crowded drawers of an old bureau or cabinet is -universally known as the prime pastime of the faded spinster; a pastime -in which the starved spirit may exercise itself among delicious -melancholies and wraiths of spent joys. Well, I am not yet faded, and I -am not a spinster; but I have fallen to the lure of "turning out." I -have lately "turned out"--not the musty souvenirs of fifty years ago, -love, fifty years ago, but the still warm fragments of A.D. 1912. - -The other day, while searching irately in my fumed-oak rolltop desk for -a publisher's royalty statement which he had not sent me, I opened at -random a little devil of a drawer who conceals his being in the -right-hand lower corner. And lo! out stepped, airily, that well-polished -gentleman, Mr. Nineteen-Twelve. My anger over the missing accounts was -at once soothed. In certain chapters of this book I have harked back to -the years before 1914, and it may be that you conceive me as a doddering -old bore: a praiser of times past. But what would you have? You have -not surely the face to ask me to praise times present? - -So I took a long look at Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and went thoroughly -through him. My first discovery was an old menu. My second discovery was -a bunch of menus. You won't get exasperated--will you?--if I print here -the menu of a one-and-sixpenny dinner, eaten on a hot June night in -Greek Street:-- - - - Hors-d'oeuvre varié. - - Consommé Henri IV. - Crème Parmentier. - - Saumon bouillé. - Concombre. - - Filet mignon. - Pommes sautés. - Haricots verts. - - Poulet en casserole. - Salade saison. - - Fraises aux liqueurs. - Glace vanille. - - Fromages. - - Dessert. - - Café. - - -I dug my hand deeper into the pockets of Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and menu -after menu and relic after relic came forth. There was a menu of a Lotus -Club supper. I'm hanged if I can remember the Lotus Club, or its idea, -or even its situation. There were old hotel bills, which, thrown -together in groups, might suggest itineraries for some very good walking -tours; for there were bills from Stratford-on-Avon and Goring-on-Thames -and High Wycombe and Oxford and Banbury; there were bills from Bognor -and Arundel and Chichester and the Isle of Wight; there were bills from -Tintern and Chepstow and Dean Forest and Monmouth; there were bills from -Kendal and Appleby and Windermere and Grasmere. Another clutching hand -gave up old menus from the Great Western, the North-Western, and the -Great Northern dining-cars. In a corner I found an assortment of fancy -cigarette tins and boxes, specially designed and engraved for various -restaurants and hotels. Now the cigarette tins are no more, and the -boxes are made from flimsy card and are none too well printed, and many -of the restaurants from which they came have disappeared, these -elaborate productions are treasurable, not only as echoes of the good -days, but as _objets d'art_. - -Further search produced a flat aluminium match-case containing twelve -vestas, and crested "With compliments--Criterion Restaurant"; and a tin -waistcoat-pocket match box, also full, containing, on the inside of the -lid, a charming glimpse of the interior of the Boulogne Restaurant--a -man and woman at table, in 1912 fashions, lifting champagne glasses and -crying, through a loop that begins and finishes at their mouths: -"_Evviva noi_!" The sight of this streak of matches spurred me to -further prospecting, and the pan, after careful washing, yielded boxes -from Paris, with gaudy dancing-girls on either cover; insanely decorated -boxes from Italy, filled with red-stemmed, yellow-headed matches; plain -boxes from Monaco; and from Ostend, very choice boxes, decorated inside -and outside with examples of the Old Masters. - -Packets of toothpicks, with wrappers advertising various English and -Continental bars, came from another corner, where they were buried under -a torn page from an old _Tatler_, showing, in various phases, Portraits -of a Well-Dressed Man. This species being now extinct, I hope the plate -of that page has been destroyed, so that my relic may possess some -value. Two tickets for the Phyllis Court enclosure at Henley lay -neglected under a printed invitation to have "A Breath of Fresh Air with -the 'Old Mitre' Christmas Club, Leaving the 'Old Mitre' by four-horse -brake at 10.30, to arrive at 'The Green Man,' Richmond, at 12 noon. A -Whacking Good Dinner and a Meat Tea. Dancing on the Lawn at Dusk." An -old programme of the Covent Garden Grand Season recalled that -magnificent band of Wagnerians, Knupfer, Dittmar, van Rooy and the rest. -Where are they now--these bull-voiced Rhinelanders? Within the programme -covers I found a ticket for admission to the fight between young Ahearn -and Carpentier which was abandoned; a printed card inviting me to a -Tango Tea at the Savoy; a request for the pleasure of my company at the -Empress Rooms to dance to the costive cacophony of a Pink Bavarian Band; -and half a dozen newspaper cuttings, with scare-heads and cross-heads, -dealing at much length with Debussy's tennis-court ballet, "Jeux," -danced by Nijinsky, Schollar and Karsavina. Turning over one of these -cuttings, I found a long report of the burning of a pillar-box by a -Suffragette, and a list of recent window-breakings. - -A little packet at the bottom caught my eye, and I dived for it. It was -a small box of liqueur chocolates from Rumpelmayer's--unopened, old boy! -unopened. I am a devil for sweets, and I was beginning to tear the -wrapper, when conscience bade me pause. Ought I to eat them? Ought I not -first to ascertain whether there were not others whose need was greater -than mine? Think of the number of girls who would give their last -hairpin for but one of the luscious little umber cubes. What right had I -to liqueur chocolates of 1912 vintage? Conscience won. The packet is -still unopened; and if, within seven days from the appearance of these -lines, the ugliest girl in the W.A.A.C. will let me have her name and -address and photograph, it will be sent to her. Failing receipt of any -application by the specified date, I shall feel free to eat 'em. - -Two others relics yet remained. One was a small gold coin, none too -common, even in those days, and now, I believe, obsolete. I fancy we -called it a half-sovereign, or half-quid, or half-thick-un or -half-Jimmy, according to the current jargon of our set. The other was a -throw-away leaflet, advertising on one side the programme of a London -County Council concert in Embankment Gardens, and on the other the cheap -Sunday and Monday excursions arranged by the National Sunday League. - -This was the most heart-breaking of all the mementoes. How many Sundays, -that otherwise might have been masses of melancholy, were shattered into -glowing fragments by these inexpensive peeps at the heart of England? I -can remember now these fugitive glimpses, with every little incident of -each glad journey; and I am impelled to breathe a prayer from the soul -for the well-being of the Sunday League, since it was only by the -enterprise of the kindly N.S.L. that I was able to see my own country. -Here I give you the list of trips, with return fares, advertised on the -leaflet before me:-- - - - s. d. - - Brighton 2 6 - - Hastings 3 0 - - Eastbourne 4 0 - - Sheffield 5 0 - - Leeds 5 0 - - Weston-super-Mare 4 0 - - Tintern Abbey 4 6 - - Stratford-on-Avon 4 0 - - Warwick 4 0 - - Bournemouth 5 0 - - Isle of Wight 6 0 - - Cardiff 5 0 - - Shrewsbury 4 6 - - Margate 3 6 - - Herne Bay 3 0 - - Cromer 5 0 - - Durham 6 0 - - York 5 0 - - -Sacred name of an Albert Stanley! - -Uttering this ejaculation, I restored my treasures to their hiding-place -with the fumbling fingers of the dew-eyed, ruminative spinster, and -locked the drawer against careless hands; hoping that, some day, some -keen collector of the rare and curious might come along and offer me a -blank cheque for this collection of Nineteen-Twelviana. Looking it over, -I consider it a very good Lot--well-assorted; each item in mint state -and scarce; one or two, indeed, unique. - -What offers? - - - - -ATTABOY! - - -On a bright afternoon of last summer I suffered all the thrills -described in the sestet of Keats's sonnet, "On First Looking Into -Chapman's Homer." I discovered a new art-form. I felt like that watcher -of the skies. I stood upon a peak in Darien. But I was not silent, for -what I had discovered was the game of baseball, and--incidentally--the -soul of America. - -That match between the American Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse -of a pastime that has captivated a continent. I can well understand its -appeal to the modern temperament; for it is more than a game: it is a -sequence of studied, grotesque poses through which the players express -all the zest of the New World. You should see Williams at the top of his -pitch. You should see the sweep of Mimms' shoulders at the finish of a -wild strike. You should see Fuller preparing to catch. What profusion of -vorticist rhythms! With what ease and finish they were executed! I know -of no keener pleasure than that of watching a man do something that he -fully knows how to do--whether it be Caruso singing, Maskelyne juggling, -Balfour making an impromptu speech, a doctor tending a patient, Brangwyn -etching, an engineer at his engines, Pachmann at the piano, Inman at the -billiard-table, a captain bringing his ship alongside, roadmen driving -in a staple, or Swanneck Rube pitching. Oh, pretty to watch, sir, pretty -to watch! No hesitation here; no feeling his way towards a method; no -fortuitous hair's-breadth triumph over the nice difficulty; but cold -facility and swift, clear answers to the multiple demands of the -situation. Oh, attaboy, Rube! - -I was received in the Army's dressing-room by Mimms, their captain, who -said he was mighty glad to know me, and would put me wise to anything in -the game that had me beat. The whole thing had me beat. I was down and -out before the Umpire had cried his first "Play Ball!" which he -delivered as one syllable: "Pl'barl!" The players in their hybrid -costumes--a mixture of the jockey and the fencer--the catcher in his gas -mask and stomach protector and gigantic mitt, and the wild grace of the -artists as they "warmed up," threw me into ecstasy, and the new thrill -that I had sought so long surged over my jaded spirit. - -Then the game began, and the rooting began. In past years I attended -various Test Matches and a few football matches in Northern mining -districts, when the players came in for a certain amount of barracking; -but these affairs were church services compared with the furious abuse -and hazing handed to any unfortunate who made an error. Such screams and -eldritch noises I never thought to hear from the human voice. No -Englishman could achieve them: his vocal cords are not made that way. -There was, for example, an explosive, reverberating "_Ah-h-h-h-h-h_!" -which I now practise in my backgarden in order to scare the sparrows -from my early peas. But my attempts are no more like the real thing than -Australian Burgundy is like wine. I can achieve the noise, but some -subtle quality is ever lacking. - -The whole scene was barbaric pandemonium: the grandstand bristling with -megaphones and tossing arms and dancing hats and demoniac faces offered -a superb subject for an artist of the Nevinson or Nash school. A Chinese -theatre is but a faint reflection of a ball game. I had never imagined -that this hard, shell-covered, business people could break into such a -debauch of frenzy. You should have heard the sedate Admiral Sims, when -the Navy made a homer, with his: "Attaboy! Oh, attaway to play ball! -Zaaaa. Zaaa. Zaaa!" and when his men made a wild throw he sure handed -them theirs. - -Here are a few of the phrases hurled at offending players:-- - -"Aw, well, well, well, well, well!" - -"Ah, you pikers, where was you raised?" - -"Hey, pitcher, is this the ball game or a corner-lot game?" - -"Say, bo, you _can_ play ball--maybe." - -"Hey, catcher, quit the diamond, and lemme li'l brudder teach yeh." - -"Say, who's that at bat? What's the good of sending in a dead man?" - -"Aw, dear, dear, dear! Gimme some barb' wire. I wanter knit a sweater -for the barnacle on second." - -"Oh, watch this, watch this! He's a bad actor. Kill the bad actor!" - -"More ivory--more ivory! Oh, boy, I love every bone in yer head." - -"Get a step-ladder to it. Take orf that pitcher. He's pitching over a -plate in heaven." - -"Aw, you quitter. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bonehead, bonehead, bonehead. _Ahhhh._" - -"Now show 'em where you live, boy. Let's have something with a bit of -class to it." - -"Give him the axe, the axe, the axe." - -"What's the matter with the man on third? 'Tisn't bed-time yet." - -An everlasting chorus, with reference to the scoring-board, chanted like -an anthem:-- - -"Go-ing up! Go-ing up! Go-ing up!" - -At the end of the game--the Navy's game all the way--the fury and -abandon increased, though, during the game, it had not seemed possible -that it could. But it did. And when, limp and worn, I shuffled out to -Walham Green, and Mimms asked me whether the game had got me, I could -only reply, with a diminuendo:-- - -"Well, well, well, well, well!" - - -I shall never again be able to watch with interest a cricket or football -match; it would be like a tortoise-race after the ball game. Such speed -and fury, such physical and mental zest, I had never before seen brought -to the playing of a simple game. It might have been a life-or-death -struggle, and the balls might have been Mills bombs, and the bats -rifles. If the Americans at play give any idea of their qualities at -battle, then Heaven help the fresh guys who are up against them. - -When the boys had dressed I joined up with a party of them, and we -adjourned to the Clarendon; where one of us, a Chicago journalist, not -trusting the delicacy of the bartender's hand, obtained permission to -sling his own; and a Bronx was passed to each of us for necessary -action. This made a fitting kick to the ball game, for a Bronx is -concentrated essence of baseball; full of quips and tricks and sharp -twists of flavour; inducing that gr-r-rand and ger-l-lorious feelin'. It -took only two of these to make the journalist break into song, and he -gave us some excellent numbers of American marching-songs. He started -with the American "Tipperary," sung to an air of Sullivan's:-- - - - Hail, hail, the gang's all here! - What th'ell do we care? - What th'ell do we care? - Hail, hail, the gang's all here, - So what th'ell do we care now? - - -Then "Happy-land":-- - - - I wish I was in Happy-land, - Where rivers of beer abound; - With sloe-gin rickies hanging on the trees - And high-balls rolling on the ground. - What? - High-balls rolling on the ground? - Sure! - High-balls rolling on the ground. - - -Then the anthem of the "dry" States:-- - - - Nobody knows how dry I am, - How dry I am, - How dry I am, - You don't know how dry I am, - How dry I am, - How dry I am. - Nobody knows how dry I am, - And nobody cares a damn. - - -After this service of song, brief, bright and brotherly, we moved slowly -Eastward, and in Kensington Gardens I learned something about college -yells. For suddenly, without warning, one of the party bent forward, -with arms outstretched, and yelled the following at a pensive sheep:-- - -"Alle ge reu, ge reu, ge reu. War-who-bar-za. Hi ix, hi ip; hi capica, -doma nica. Hong pong. Lita pica. Halleka, balakah, ba." - -At first I conjectured that the Bronx was running its course, but when -he had spoken his piece the rest of the gang let themselves go, and I -then understood that we were having a round of college yells. -Respectable strangers might have mistaken the performance for the war -march of the priests, or the entry of the gladiators, or the battle-song -of the hairy Ainus; for such monstrous perversions of sense and sound -surely have never before disturbed the serenity of the Gardens. - -I understand that the essential of a good college yell is that it be -utterly meaningless, barbaric and larynx-racking. It should seem to be -the work of some philologist who had suddenly gone mad under the strain -of his studies and had attempted to converse with an aborigine. I think -Augustana's yell pretty well fills that condition:-- - -"Rocky-eye, rocky-eye. Zip, zum, zie. Shingerata, shingerata, bim, bum, -bie. Zip-zum, zip-zum, rah, rah, rah. Karaborra, karaborra, -Augus-_tana_." - -At the conclusion of this choral service we caught a bus to Piccadilly -Circus and I left them at the Tube entrance singing "Bob up serenely," -and went home to dream of the ball game and of millions of fans -screaming abstruse advice into my deaf ear. - -Oh, attaboy! - - * * * * * - -Since that merry meeting I have had many opportunities of getting next -to the American Army and Navy, and hearing their views of us and British -views of them, and the experience has done me a lot of good. Until then, -the only Americans I had met were the leisured, over-moneyed tourists, -mostly disagreeable, and, as I have found since, by no means -representative of their country. You know them. They came to England in -the autumn, and stayed at opulent hotels, and made a lot of noise around -ancient shrines, and sent local prices sky-rocketing wherever they -stayed, and threw their weight and fifty-dollar tips about, and "Say'd" -and "My'd" and "Gee'd" up and down the Strand; that kind of American. -These people did their country a lot of harm, because I and thousands of -other people received them as Americans and disliked them; just as -wealthy trippers to and from other countries leave bad impressions of -their people. I made up my mind on America from my meetings with these -parvenus. I had forgotten that the best and typical people of a country -are the hard-working, stay-at-home people, whose labours just enable -them to feed and clothe their children and provide nothing for gadding -about to other countries. To-day, the solid middle-class people of -England and America are meeting and mixing, and all political history is -washed out by the waters of social intercourse between them. High -officials and diplomats are for ever telling one another over official -luncheon tables that the friendship of this and that nation is sealed, -but such remarks are valueless until the common people of either country -have met and made their own decision; and the cost of living does not -permit such meetings. Thus we have wars and unholy alliances. If only -the common people of all countries could meet and exchange views in a -common language, without the prejudice inspired by Press and politician, -international amity would be for ever established, as Anglo-American -amity is now established by the free-and-easy meeting of hard-working, -middle-class Americans and the same social type of Englishman. - -After meeting hundreds of Americans of a class and position similar to -my own, I have changed all my views of America. We have everything in -common and nothing to differ about. I don't care a damn on whose side -was right or wrong in 1773. I have taken the boys round London. I have -played their games. I have eaten their food. I have talked their slang -and taught them mine. They have eaten my food, and we have sported -joyfully together, and discussed music and books and theatres, and -amiably amused ourselves at the expense of each other's social -institutions and ceremonies. As they are guests in England, I have -played host, and, among other entertainment that I have offered, I have -been able to give them what they most needed; namely, evenings and odd -hours in real middle-class English homes, where they could see an -Englishwoman pour out tea and see an English baby put to bed. I found -that they were sick of the solemn "functions" arranged for their -entertainment. They didn't want high-brow receptions or musical -entertainments in Mayfair. They preferred the spontaneous entertainment -arising from a casual encounter in the street, as by asking the way to -this or that place, leading to an invitation to a suburban home and a -suburban meal. From such a visit they get an insight into our ways, our -ideals, our outlook on life, better than they ever could from a Pall -Mall club or a Government official's drawing-room. They get the real -thing, which is something to write home about. In the "arranged" affairs -they are "guests"; in the others, they are treated with the rude, -haphazard fellowship which we extend to friends. - -In these troubled days there is little room for the exercise of the -graces of life. Our ears are deaf to the gentle voice of urbanity. The -delicacies of intercourse have been trodden underfoot, and lie withered -and broken. Even the quality of mercy has been standardized and put into -uniform. Throughout the world to-day, everything is organized, and to -organize a beautiful movement or emotion is to brutalize it: while -lubricating its mechanism you ossify its soul. Thank God, there is still -left a little spontaneity. Human impulse may be bruised and broken, but -it is a fiery thing, and hard to train to harness or to destroy; and I -can assure you that the Americans are grateful for it wherever it finds -expression. - -One evening, just before curfew--it was night according to the -Government, but the sky said quite clearly that it was evening--I was -standing at my favourite coffee-stall near King's Cross, eating -hard-boiled eggs and drinking introspective coffee, and chatting with -the boss on the joy of life. - -"Met any of the Americans?" I asked, anxious to get his opinion of -them. - -"Met any? Crowds of 'em." - -"What do you think of 'em?" - -"Oh, I dunno. Bit of a change after all these other foreigners. -'Strewth--d'yeh know, when a Cockney like yesself comes along to the -stall I feel like dropping down dead--'strewth, I do. Never get none o' -the usual 'appy crowd along now," he went on, mopping the sloppy -counter. - -"But how do the Americans strike you?" - -"The Americans? Well...." He folded his arms, which with him is the -flourish preliminary to an oration. Here is his opinion, which I think -sums up the American character pretty aptly:-- - -"The Americans. Well, nice, likeable fellers I've alwis found 'em. Don't -'alf make for my stall when they come out o' the station. Like it -better, they say, than Lady Dardy Dinkum's canteen inside. And eat.... -Fair clear me out every time they come. I get on with 'em top-'ole. -There's something about 'em--I dunno what, some kind o' kiddishness--but -not that exac'ly--a sort of----" - -"Fresh delight in simple things," I suggested, drawing on my Pelmanized -Bartlett. - -"That's jest it. Mad about London, y'know. Why, I bin in London yers an' -yers, and it don't worry me. Wants to know which is the oldest building -in London, and where that bloke put 'is cloak in the mud for some Queen, -an' where Cromwell was executed, and 'ow many generals is buried in -Westminster Abbey. 'Ow should I know anything about Westminster Abbey? I -live in Camden Town. I got me business t'attend to. - -"There's a friend of mine, Mr. 'Ankin, the gentleman what takes the -tickets at Baker Street--'e met two of 'em t'other day. Navy boys--from -the country, I should think. D'you know, they spent the 'ole mornin' -ridin' up and down the movin' staircase--yerce, and would 'ave spent the -afternoon, too, on'y one of 'em tried to run up the staircase what was -comin' down an'.... Well, I dessay it was good practice for 'em, but, as -Mr. 'Ankin told 'em, it's safer to monkey with a U-boat than with a -movin' staircase. And anyway, 'e'll be out of hospital before 'is ship's -moved. - -"Yerce, I like the Americans--what I've seen of 'em. No swank about -'em, y'know--officers an' men, just alike, all pals together. -Confidence. That's what they got. Talks to yeh matey-like--know what I -mean--man to man kind o' thing. Funny the way they looks at England, -though. I s'pose they seen it on the map and it looked smallish. One -feller come round the stall t'other night, an' 'e'd got two days' leave -an' thought 'e could do Stratford-on-Avon, Salisbury Cathedral, Chester, -Brighton, Edinburgh Castle, an' the spot o' blood where that American -gel, Marry Queener Scots, murdered 'er boy--all in two days. 'Ustle, I -believe they calls it over there. So I told 'im to start 'ustlin' right -away, else, when 'e got back, 'e'd find 'imself waiting on the carpet, -waiting for the good old C.B. Likeable boys, though. 'Ere's to 'em. No, -I'll 'ave a ginger-ale. I don't drink me own coffee--not when I'm -drinkin' anyone's 'ealth, like. Well, _Attaboy_, as they say over -there." - - - - -ADVERTISEMENTS - - -BY SIMEON STRUNSKY - -PROFESSOR LATIMER'S PROGRESS - -The "sentimental journey" of a middle-aged American scholar upon whose -soul the war has come down heavily, and who seeks a cure--and an -answer--in a walking trip up-State. - - - "The war has produced no other book like 'Professor Latimer's - Progress,' with its sanative masculine blend of deep feeling, fluid - intelligence, and heart-easing mirth, its people a joyous company. - It is a spiritual adventure, the adventure of the American soul in - search of a new foothold in a tottering world. We have so many - books of documents, of animus, or argument; what a refreshment to - fall in, for once in a way, with a book of that quiet creative - humor whose 'other name' is wisdom."--_The Nation._ (_Illustrated_, - $1.40 _net_.) - - -LITTLE JOURNEYS TOWARDS PARIS (1914/1918) - -By W. HOHENZOLLERN, translated and adapted for untutored minds by SIMEON -STRUNSKY. _75 cents net._ - - - "If only the Germans could be supplied with translations of this - exquisite satire they would die laughing at the grisly joke on - themselves. Not only funny, it is a final reductio ad absurdum of - the Hun philosophy."--_Chicago Tribune._ - - -BELSHAZZAR COURT Or Village Life in New York City - -Graceful essays about the average citizen in his apartment house, in the -street, at the theater, the baseball park, with his children, etc. $1.35 -_net_. - - -BY DOROTHY CANFIELD - -HOME FIRES IN FRANCE - -True stories of war-time France. $1.50 _net_. - - - "The finest work of fiction produced by the war."--_Prof. Wm. Lyon - Phelps._ - - "Of war books, 'Home Fires in France' is most likely to endure for - its truth, its humanity and its literary value."--_The Nation._ - - -UNDERSTOOD BETSY - -Illustrated by ADA C. WILLIAMSON. $1.50 _net_. - - - "That rare thing, a good book for girls."--_N. Y. Evening Post._ - - Older readers will find its humor delightful. A book that "holds - laughter, some excitement and all outdoors." - - -_Two Novels of American Life_ - -THE BENT TWIG - -The story of a lovely open-eyed, open-minded American girl, her family, -and her romance. $1.75 _net_. - -THE SQUIRREL-CAGE - -An unusual personal and real story of American family life. $1.75 _net_. - - -_Two Volumes of Notable Short Stories_ - -HILLSBORO PEOPLE - -Stories of Vermont people, with occasional Vermont Verse by SARAH N. -CLEGHORN. $1.50 _net_. - -THE REAL MOTIVE - -Stories with varied backgrounds unified by the underlying humanity of -all the characters. $1.50 _net_. - - -BY MARGARET WIDDEMER - -_NOVELS_ - -THE WISHING-RING MAN - -A romance of a New England summer colony. $1.50 _net_. - - - "Margaret Widdemer, who says she likes happy stories, proves it by - writing them for other people to read.... The book is full of - charm, amusing incident, and gay conversation; and the interest in - the situation holds to the last half page."--_N.Y. Evening Post._ - - -YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG ONCE - -Miss Widdemer's new novel is the story of youth's romance as it came to -the five girls and three boys of a happy American family. $1.50 _net_. - - -_POETRY_ - -FACTORIES, AND OTHER POEMS - -Second printing. $1.30 _net_. - - - "An art which speaks ever so eloquently for itself.... Splendid - effort both in thought and execution, and ranks with the cry of the - children as voiced by Mrs. Browning."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ - - "Among the foremost of American versifiers when she touches the - great passionate realities of life."--_Living Age._ - - -THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE - -A collection of the poems that have appeared since "Factories." $1.25 -_net_. - - -BOOKS ON MUSICIANS - -BY ROMAIN ROLLAND - - Author of "Jean-Christophe," and called by W. J. HENDERSON "The - most interesting of living critics of Music and Musicians." - - -SOME MUSICIANS OF FORMER DAYS - - Translated from the fourth French edition by MARY BLAIKLOCK. $1.50 - net. - - -The Place of Music in General History; The Beginning of Opera; The First -Opera Played in Paris; Notes on Lully, and shorter but vivid papers on -Gluck, Grétry, and Mozart. - - - " ... One of the greatest of living musical scholars. He is also - the most interesting of contemporaneous writers.... Written with - brilliant scholarship, with critical insight and with flashes of - human sympathy and humor.... Every lover of music should hasten to - give himself the pleasure of a persual of this delightful volume - which radiates learning, keen judgment and sympathetic - humor."--_New York Sun._ - - -MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY - - Translated from the fifth French edition by _Mary Blaiklock_. With - an Introduction by CLAUDE LANDI. 324 pp. $1.50 net. - - -Berlioz's stormy career and music, Wagner's "Siegfried" and "Tristan," -Saint-Saëns, Vincent D'Indy, Hugo Wolf, Debussy's "Pelléas and -Mélisande," "The Musical Movement in Paris," and an absorbing paper on -the Concert-Music of Richard Strauss, etc. - - - "May surely be read with profit by the musically uneducated and - educated."--_Philip Hale in the Boston Herald._ - - -HANDEL - - Translation and Introduction by A. EAGLEFIELD HULL. With musical - extracts, four unusual illustrations, and an index. 210 pp. $1.50 - net. - - " ... Written with enthusiasm, but with judgment as well. The story - of Handel's life is told simply, but with feeling and alacrity of - phrase ... will repay reading...."--_Springfield Republican._ - - -BEETHOVEN - - Translated by A. EAGLEFIELD HULL. $1.50 net. - - -This is, perhaps, the most famous of the non-fiction musical books by -the author of "Jean-Christophe." The translator has added to Mr. -Rolland's famous monograph, in which he treats of Beethoven both as -musician and hero, so much interesting additional material that this -volume almost doubles the size of the original. - - -_The Third Edition_, _Revised and Enlarged_, _of_ - -THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE - -COMPILED BY - -BURTON E. STEVENSON - -has been revised from end to end--590 poems have been added, pages -renumbered, author, title, and first line indices, and the biographical -matter corrected, etc., etc. - -The hundreds of letters from readers and poets suggesting additions or -corrections as well as the columns of reviews of the first edition have -been considered. Poets who were chary of lending their support to an -unknown venture have now generously permitted the use of their work. - -This edition includes the "new" poets such as MASEFIELD, CHESTERTON, -FROST, RUPERT BROOKE, DE LA MARE, RALPH HODGSON, etc. - - - "A collection so complete and distinguished that it is difficult to - find any other approaching it sufficiently for comparison."--_New - York Times Book Review_ on the first edition. - - -_India Paper, 4,096 pages_ - -_Cloth, one volume, $12.50 net._ -_Cloth, two volumes, $16.00 net._ -_Half Morocco, one volume, $15.00 net._ -_Half Morocco, two volumes, $25.00 net._ - - -PATIENCE WORTH: A PSYCHIC MYSTERY - -By CASPAR S. YOST. Fourth Printing. $1.50 net. - -In July, 1913, Mrs. John H. Curran, of St. Louis, and a friend were -amusing themselves with a ouija board, when out of a clear sky came: - - - "Many moons ago, I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name." - - -Thus began an intimate association with "Patience Worth," that still -continues, and a series of communications that in intellectual vigor and -literary quality are virtually without precedent. - -An account of the whole matter and the shorter communications make up -the present volume. - - - "Sensitive, witty, keenly metaphysical. Whoever or whatever she is, - she meets the test that human beings meet."--FRANCIS HACKETT in - _The New Republic_. - - "A mind, whosoever it may be, that has retained abundant vigor, - distinction and individual savor."--LAWRENCE GILMAN in _The North - American Review_. - - -_BOOKS BY PATIENCE WORTH_ - -Edited by CASPAR S. YOST - -THE SORRY TALE - -A Story of the Time of Christ. 644 pages. $1.90 net. - -A story filled with action. It brings into close view the historical -characters of Tiberius, the Herods, Pilate, Peter, and particularly and -dominantly, Jesus Christ. - - - "This second book increases the marvel of the first. A wonderful, a - beautiful and a noble book."--_New York Times Book Review._ - - -HOPE TRUEBLOOD - -A novel of Mid-Victorian England. $1.50 net. - - - "A work approximating absolute genius."--_New York Tribune._ - - -WRITERS OF THE DAY - -Critical estimates of the works of famous authors and accounts of their -lives, written while they are yet alive, and done, not by literary -hacks, but by fellow-craftsmen of a younger generation distinguished for -imaginative work. - -_Each volume with portrait and bibliography, 75 cents net._ - - - "There is nothing perfunctory about these little volumes.... All - are terse, breezy, comprehensive, authoritative."--_New York Times - Review._ - - -ANATOLE FRANCE -By W. L. GEORGE - -H. G. WELLS -By J. D. BERESFORD - -ARNOLD BENNETT -By F. J. H. DARTON - -RUDYARD KIPLING -By JOHN PALMER - -HENRY JAMES -By REBECCA WEST - -JOSEPH CONRAD -By HUGH WALPOLE - -THOMAS HARDY -By HUGH CHILD - -JOHN GALSWORTHY -By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH - -MRS. HUMPHRY WARD -By STEPHEN GWYNN - - -BY CLAYTON HAMILTON - -Each book fully indexed. 12mo. $1.75 net. - -PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT - -Building a Play Backward; Surprise in the Drama; The Troublesome Last -Act; High Comedy in America; The George M. Cohan School of Playrights; -Middle Class Opinion; Criticism and Creation in the Drama; Dramatic -Talent and Theatrical Talent; The Plays of Lord Dunsany; Romance and -Realism in the Drama; Scenic Settings in America; The New Stagecraft; -The Non-Commercial Drama; A Democratic Insurrection in the Theatre; A -Scheme for a Stock Company; What's Wrong with the American Drama, etc., -etc. - - - _Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Bookman_: " ... Mr. Hamilton and - Mr. Archer--like Lessing and like Sarcey--have a broad background - of culture.... They never stray into the dusty paths of - pedantry.... Consistently interesting because it has the support of - knowledge and the savour of individuality." - - -STUDIES IN STAGECRAFT - -The New Art of Making Plays, The Pictorial Stage, The Modern Art of -Stage Direction, A Plea for a New Type of Play, The Undramatic Drama, -The Supernatural Drama, The Irish National Theatre, Where to Begin a -Play, A New Defense of Melodrama, The Art of the Moving-Picture Play, -The One-Act Play in America, Organizing an Audience, etc., etc. - - - _Nation_: "Information, alertness, coolness, sanity and the command - of a forceful and pointed English.... A good book, in spite of all - deductions." - - _Prof. Archibald Henderson, in The Drama_: "University excellent in - quality.... Continually interesting in presentation ... uniform for - high excellence and elevated standards...." - - -THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE - -What is a Play?--The Psychology of Theatre Audiences.--The Actor and the -Dramatist.--Stage Conventions in Modern Times.--The Four Leading Types -of Drama.--The Modern Social Drama, and Other Principles of Dramatic -Criticism.--The _Public_ and the Dramatist.--Dramatic Art and the -Theatre Business.--Dramatic Literature and Theatric -Journalism.--Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays.--Themes in the Theatre.--The -Function of Imagination, etc., etc. - - - _Bookman_: "Presents coherently a more substantial body of idea on - the subject than perhaps elsewhere accessible." - - _Boston Transcript_: "At every moment of his discussion he has a - firm grasp upon every phase of the subject." - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON*** - - -******* This file should be named 53155-8.txt or 53155-8.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/1/5/53155 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/53155-8.zip b/old/53155-8.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 61662cb..0000000 --- a/old/53155-8.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/53155-h.zip b/old/53155-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 3ea806f..0000000 --- a/old/53155-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/53155-h/53155-h.htm b/old/53155-h/53155-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 4e88df2..0000000 --- a/old/53155-h/53155-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4955 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> -<head> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" /> -<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Out and About London, by Thomas Burke</title> - <style type="text/css"> - - p { margin-top: .75em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .75em; - } - - p.bold {text-align: center; font-weight: bold;} - p.bold2 {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; font-size: 150%;} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; - } - h1 span, h2 span { display: block; text-align: center; } - #id1 { font-size: smaller } - - - hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; - } - - hr.full { - width: 100%; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-bottom: 1em; - margin-left: 0%; - margin-right: 0%; - clear: both; - } - - body{margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; - } - - table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding: 5px; border-collapse: collapse; border: none; text-align: right;} - - .pagenum { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ - /* visibility: hidden; */ - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; - text-indent: 0px; - } /* page numbers */ - - .center {text-align: center;} - .smaller {font-size: smaller;} - .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - .box {max-width: 23em; margin: 1.5em auto;} - .box2 {max-width: 28em; margin: 1.5em auto;} - .space-above {margin-top: 3em;} - .right {text-align: right;} - .left {text-align: left;} - .s3 {display: inline; margin-left: 3em;} - .uline { text-decoration: underline; } - - .poem {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} - .poem br {display: none;} - .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} - .poem div {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} - .poem div.i1 {margin-left: 1em;} - .poem div.i2 {margin-left: 2em;} - .poem div.i4 {margin-left: 4em;} - - hr.pg { width: 100%; - margin-top: 3em; - margin-bottom: 0em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - height: 4px; - border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ - border-style: solid; - border-color: #000000; - clear: both; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Out and About London, by Thomas Burke</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no -restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it -under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this -eBook or online at <a -href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Out and About London</p> -<p>Author: Thomas Burke</p> -<p>Release Date: September 28, 2016 [eBook #53155]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON***</p> -<p> </p> -<h4>E-text prepared by deaurider, Martin Pettit,<br /> - and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> - (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br /> - from page images generously made available by<br /> - Internet Archive<br /> - (<a href="https://archive.org">https://archive.org</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://archive.org/details/outaboutlondon00burk"> - https://archive.org/details/outaboutlondon00burk</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pg" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div class="center"><a name="cover.jpg" id="cover.jpg"></a><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="cover" /></div> - -<hr /> - -<h1>OUT AND ABOUT LONDON</h1> - -<hr /> - -<div class="box"> -<h2><i>BY THE SAME AUTHOR</i></h2> - -<p class="center">NIGHTS IN LONDON</p> - -<p class="center">"Hundreds of books have been written about London, but few are as well -worth reading as this."—<i>London Times.</i></p> - -<p class="center">"Thomas Burke writes of London as Kipling wrote of India."—<i>Baltimore -Sun.</i></p> - -<p class="center">"A real book."—<i>New York Sun.</i></p> - -<p class="center">4th printing, $1.50</p> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p class="bold2">OUT AND ABOUT<br />LONDON</p> - -<p class="bold space-above">BY</p> - -<p class="bold2">THOMAS BURKE</p> - -<p class="bold">AUTHOR OF "LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS"<br />AND "NIGHTS IN LONDON"</p> - -<div class="center space-above"><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="logo" /></div> - -<p class="bold space-above">NEW YORK<br /><br />HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />1919</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1919<br /> -<br /> -BY<br /> -<br /> -HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY</p> - -<hr /> - -<h2>1916</h2> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Lady, the world is old, and we are young.</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>The world is old to-night and full of tears</i></div> -<div><i>And tumbled dreams, and all its songs are sung,</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>And echoes rise no more from the tombed years.</i></div> -<div><i>Lady, the world is old, but we are young.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Once only shines the mellow moon so fair;</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>One speck of Time is Love's Eternity.</i></div> -<div><i>Once only can the stars so light your hair,</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>And the night make your eyes my psaltery.</i></div> -<div><i>Lady, the world is old. Love still is young.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div><i>Let us take hand ere the swift moment end.</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>My heart is but a lamp to light your way.</i></div> -<div><i>My song your counsellor, my love your friend,</i></div> -<div class="i1"><i>Your soul the shrine whereat I kneel and pray.</i></div> -<div><i>Lady, the world grows old. Let us be young.</i></div> -</div><div class="stanza"> -<div class="right"><i>T. B.</i></div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr /> - -<h2>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table summary="CONTENTS"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td><span class="smaller">PAGE</span></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Round the Town, 1917</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Back to Dockland</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Chinatown Revisited</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Soho Carries On</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_58">58</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Out of Town</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_69">69</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">In Search of a Show</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_82">82</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Vodka and Vagabonds</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">The Kids' Man</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Crowded Hours</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_123">123</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Saturday Night</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_134">134</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Rendezvous</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_140">140</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Tragedy and Cockneyism </span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Mine Ease at Mine Inn</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_155">155</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Relics</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class="smcap">Attaboy!</span></td> - <td><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - -<p class="bold2">OUT AND ABOUT LONDON</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ROUND THE TOWN, 1917</h2> - -<p>It was a lucid, rain-washed morning—one of those rare mornings when -London seems to laugh before you, disclosing her random beauties. In -every park the trees were hung with adolescent tresses, green and white -and yellow, and the sky was busy with scudding clouds. Even the solemn -bricks had caught something of the sudden colour of the day, and London -seemed to toss in its long, winter sleep and to take the heavy breaths -of the awakening sluggard.</p> - -<p>I turned from my Fleet Street window to my desk, took my pen, found it -in good working order, and put it down. I was hoping that it would be -damaged, or that the ink had run out; I like to deceive myself with some -excuse for not working. But on this occasion none presented itself save -the call of the streets and the happy aspect of things, and I made these -serve my purpose. With me it is always thus. Let there come the first -sharp taste of Spring in the February air and I am demoralized. Away -with labour. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> sun is shining. The sky is bland. There are seven -hundred square miles of London in which Adventure is shyly lurking for -those who will seek her out. What about it? So I drew five pounds from -the cash-box, stuffed it into my waistcoat-pocket, and let myself loose, -feeling, as the phrase goes, that I didn't care if it snowed. And as I -walked, there rose in my heart a silly song, with no words and no tune; -or, if any words, something like—how does it go?—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Boys and girls, come out to play—</div> -<div>Hi-ti-hiddley-hi-ti-hay!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But the fool is bent upon a twig. I found the boys preoccupied and the -girls unwearied in war-work. One good comrade of the highways and byways -had married a wife; and therefore he could not come. Another had bought -a yoke of oxen, and must needs go and prove them—as though they were a -problem of Euclid. Luckily, I ran against Caradoc Evans, disguised in a -false beard, in order to escape the fury of the London Welshmen, and -looking like the advance agent of a hard winter. Seeing my silly, -hark-halloa face, he inquired what was up. I explained that I was out -for a day's amusement—the first<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> chance I had had since 1914. -Whereupon, he ran me into a little place round the corner, and bought me -an illicit drink at an hour when the minatory finger of Lord d'Abernon -was still wagging; and informed me with tears in the voice, and many a -"boy bach," and "old bloke," and "indeed," that this was the Year of -Grace 1917, and that London was not amusing.</p> - -<p>It was not until the third drink that I discovered how right he was. As -a born Cockney, living close to London every minute of my life, I had -not noticed the slow change in the face and soul of London. I had long -been superficially aware that something was gone from the streets and -the skies, but the feeling was no more definite than that of the gourmet -whose palate hints that the cook has left something—it cannot say -what—out of the soup. It was left for the swift perception of the -immigrant Welshman to apprise me fully of the truth. But once it was -presented to me, I saw it too clearly. My search for amusement, I knew -then, was at an end, and what had promised to be an empurpling of the -town seemed like to degenerate into a spelling-bee. Of course, I might -have gone back to my desk; but the Spring had worked too far into my -system to allow even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> a moment's consideration of that alternative. -There remained nothing to do but to wander, and to pray for a glimpse of -that tempestuous petticoat of youth that deserted us in 1914. It was a -forlorn pursuit: I knew I would never touch its hem.</p> - -<p>I never did. I wandered all day with Caradoc bach, and we did this and -we did that, while I strove to shake from my shoulders the bundle of -dismay that seemed fastened there. The young men having gone to war, the -streets were filled with middle-aged women of thirty, in short skirts, -trying to attract the aged satyrs, the only men that remained, by -pretending to be little girls. At mid-day, that hour when, throughout -London, you may hear the symphony of swinging gates and creaking bolts, -we paid hurried calls at the old haunts. They were either empty or -filled with new faces. Rule's, in Maiden Lane, was deserted. The Bodega -had been besieged by, and had capitulated to, the Colonial army. -Mooney's had become the property of the London Irish. The vociferous -rehearsal crowds had decamped from the Bedford Head, and left it to -strayed and gloomy Service men, who cared nothing for its traditions; -and Yates's Wine Lodge, the home<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span> of the blue-chinned laddies looking -for a shop, was filled with women war-workers.</p> - -<p>Truly, London was no more herself. The word carried no more the magical -quality with which of old time it was endued. She was no more the -intellectual centre, or the political centre, or the social centre of -the world. She was not even an English city, like Leeds or Sheffield or -Birmingham. She was a large city with a population of nondescript -millions.</p> - -<p>This I realized more clearly when, a week or so after our tour, an -American, whom I was conducting round London, asked me to show him -something typically English. I couldn't. I tried to take him to an -English restaurant. There was none. Even the old chop-houses, under -prevailing restrictions, were offering manufactured food like spaghetti -and disguised offal. I turned to the programmes of the music-halls. Here -again England was frozen out. There were comedians from France, jugglers -from Japan, conjurers from China, trick-cyclists from Belgium, -weight-lifters from Australia, buck-dancers from America, and ... -England, with all thy faults I love thee still; but do take a bit of -interest in yourself. A stranger, arriving from overseas,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> might suppose -that the war was over, and that London was in the hands of the -conquerors. This impression he might receive from a single glance at our -streets. The Strand at the moment of writing is blocked for pedestrian -traffic by Australians and New Zealanders; Piccadilly Circus belongs to -the Belgians and the French; and the Americans possess Belgravia. -Canadian cafeterias are doing good business round Westminster; French -coffee-bars are thriving in the Shaftesbury Avenue district; Belgian -restaurants occupy the waste corners around Kingsway; and two more -Chinese restaurants have lately been opened in the West End.</p> - -<p>The common Cockney seemed to walk almost fearfully about his invaded -streets, hardly daring to be himself or talk his own language. Apart -from the foreign tongues, which always did annoy his ear, foul language -now assailed him from every side: "no bon," "napoo," "gadget," -"camouflaged," "buckshee," "bonza," and so on. This is not good slang. -Good slang has a quality of its own—a bite and spit and fine -expressiveness which do not belong to dictionary words. That is its -justification—the supplying of a lacking shade of expression, not the -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>supplanting of adequate forms. The old Cockney slang did justify -itself, but this modern Army rubbish, besides being uncouth, is utterly -meaningless, and might have been invented by some idiot schoolboy: -probably was.</p> - -<p>After some search, we found a quiet corner in a bar where the perverted -stuff was not being talked, and there we gave ourselves to recalling the -little joyous jags that marked the progress of other years. I was -dipping the other night into a favourite bedside book of mine—here I'd -like to put in a dozen pages on bedside books—a Social Calendar for -1909; a rich reliquary for the future historian; and was shocked on -noting the number of simple festivals which are now ruled out of our -monotonous year. Do you remember them? Chestnut Sunday at Bushey -Park—City and Suburban—Derby and Oaks—Ascot Sunday at Maidenhead—Cup -Tie at the Crystal Palace—Spring week-ends by the sea—evening taxi -jaunts to Richmond and Staines—gay nights at the Empire and the -adjoining bars—supper after the theatre—moonlight trips in the summer -season down river to the Nore—polo at Ranelagh—cricket at Lord's and -the Oval—the Boat Race—Henley week—Earl's Court and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> White City -Exhibitions, where one could finish the evening on the wiggle-woggle, as -a final flicker. And now they have just delivered the most brutal blow -of all. Having robbed us of our motors and our cheap railways, they have -stolen away from the working-man his (and my) chiefest delight—the -beanfeast wagonette. (How I would have loved to take Henry James on one -of these jags.) The disappearance of this delight of the summer season -is, at the moment, so acute and so personal a grief, that I cannot trust -myself to speak of it. I must withdraw, and leave F. W. Thomas (of <i>The -Star</i>) to deliver the valedictory address:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>This spells the death of yet another old English institution. One -cannot go beanfeasting in traps and pony carts. There would be no -room for the cornet man, and without his distended cheeks and -dreadful harmony the picture would be incomplete.</p> - -<p>That was a great day when we met at the works in the morning, all -in our best clothes and squeaky boots, all sporting large -buttonholes and cigars of the rifle-range brand.</p> - -<p>With the yellow stone jars safely stowed under the seat and the -cornet man perched at the driver's left hand, we started off. -Usually the route lay through Shoreditch and Hackney to Clapton, -and so to the green fields of the Lea Bridge Road.</p> - -<p>For the first hour of the journey we were quiet, early-morningish, -and a little reminiscent, recalling the glories of past beanfeasts. -The cornet man tootled half-heartedly, with many rests and much -licking of dry lips. Not until the "Greyhound" was passed did he -get well under way, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> then there was no stopping him. His face -got redder and redder as he blasted his way through his repertoire; -a feast of music covering the years between "Champagne Charlie" and -Marie Lloyd.</p> - -<p>At the end of the drive the horses were put up and baited, and the -merry beanfeasters spread themselves and their melody through the -glades of Loughton or High Beech, with cold roast beef and pickles -at Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge or the "Robin Hood."</p> - -<p>And who does not remember that joyful homeward journey, with the -cornet man, now ruddier than the cherry, blaring "Little Brown Jug" -from well-oiled lungs, while behind him the revellers sang "As your -hair grows whiter," and an accordion in the back seats bleated "The -Miner's Dream."</p> - -<p>As Herbert Campbell used to sing in the old days:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div class="i2">Then up I came with my little lot,</div> -<div class="i2">And the air went blue for miles;</div> -<div>The trees all shook and the copper took his hook,</div> -<div class="i2">And down came all the tiles.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>That was the real tit-bit of the beanfeast, the rollicking homeward -drive, with the brake embowered in branches of trees raped from the -Forest, and lit by swaying Chinese lanterns and great bunches of -dahlias bought from the cottagers of Loughton, and Chingford.</p> - -<p>One always took home a bunch of flowers from a beanfeast, and maybe -a pint of shrimps for the missus, and some acorns for the -youngsters, or a gilded mug.</p> - -<p>The defunct brake had other uses than this. Sometimes it took -parties of solemn old ladies in beads and black to an orgy of tea -and cake in the grounds of the "Leg of Mutton" at Chadwell Heath. -These were prim affairs. Mothers' Meeting from the little red -church round the corner. They had no cornet, and the smiling parson -rode in the seat assigned to Orpheus.</p> - -<p>The youngsters, too, had their days—riotous days shrill with song -and gay with coloured streamers, air-balloons and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>trumpets. How -merrily they would bellow that they were "all a-going to Rye House, -so 'Ip-ip-ip-ooray!'" though their destination was Burnham Beeches -or Brickett Wood.</p> - -<p>Rubber-neck parties of American tourists occasionally saw the -sights of London from brakes and wagonettes; solemn people, who for -all the signs of holiday they displayed might have been driving to -Tyburn Tree.</p> - -<p>But the real reason for the brake was the beanfeast with its -attendant cornet man and its rubicund driver with his white topper -and the little boys running behind and stealing rides on the back -step. Until the war is over Epping will know them no more, and the -nightingales of Fairlop Plain will sing to the moon undisturbed.</p></blockquote> - -<p>We lunched at the "Trocadero," where a friend on the staff put us in the -right place and put before us the right food and the right wine. The -rooms looked like a Service mess-room. Every guest looked like every -other guest. Men and women alike had fallen victims to that devastating -plague of uniforms, and all charm, all significance, had been -obliterated by this murrain of khaki and blue serge. The suave curves of -feminine dress had been ironed out by the harsh hand of the -standardizer, and in their place we saw only the sullen lines of the -Land Girls' rig making juts and points with the rigidities of the -Women's Army Corps and Women's Police garb. The Vorticists ought to be -thankful for the war. It accomplished in one stroke what, in 1914, they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> -were feverishly attempting: it turned life into a wilderness of angles.</p> - -<p>"Clothes," said Carlyle, "gave us individuality, distinction, social -polity." He ought to see us now. Standard Bread, Standard Suits, -Standard This, and Standard That.... The very word "standard" must now -be so universally loathed by men who have managed to conceal from the -controllers some remnants of character, that I wonder the <i>Evening -Standard</i> manages to retain its popularity without a change of title. If -standardizing really helped matters, nobody could complain; but can -Dogberry aver that it does? Does it not, in practice, rather hinder than -help? In railway carriages the bottlefed citizen girds against all this -aimless interference with his daily life; but his protests are no more -considerable than that of the victim in the melodrama: "Have a care, Sir -Aubrey, have a care. You have ruined me sister. You have murdered me -wife. You have cast me aged father into prison. You have seduced me son. -You have sold up me home. But beware, Sir Aubrey, beware. I am a man of -quick temper. <i>Don't go too far.</i>"</p> - -<p>When we looked round the Trocadero, and we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> remembered the bright -company it once held, and then noted the tart aspect of the place under -organization, we felt a little unwell, and dared to wonder why -efficiency cannot walk with beauty and the zeal for victory go with -grace and gladness. Had the marriage, we wondered, been tried by the -authorities, and the parties proved to be so palpably incompatible? Or -was it that they had been for ever sundered by some one who mistakes -dullness for earnestness and ugliness for strength?</p> - -<p>However, the rich scents of well-cooked offal, mingled with those of -wine and Oriental tobacco, soothed us a little, and we achieved a brief -loosening of the prevailing restraint, and allowed our thoughts to run -without the chain. Our friend had dug from the depths of the cellar a -fragrant Southern wine, true liquid sunshine, tinct with the odour of -green seas; a rare bottle to which I made a chant-royal on the back of -the menu, and, luckily for you, mislaid the thing, or it would be -printed here. We talked freely; not brilliantly, but with just that -touch of piquancy that stimulants and narcotics, rightly used, bestow -upon the brain.</p> - -<p>We lounged over coffee and liqueurs, and then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> strolled up the Avenue -and called at the establishment of "Mr. Francis Downman," that most -discriminating and charming of wine-merchants—discriminating because he -has given his life to the study of wines; charming because, away from -his wine-cellars and in his true name, he is a novelist whose books, so -lit with sparkle and espièglerie, have carried fair breezes into many a -dusty heart. If you have ever visited that old Queen Anne House in Dean -Street and glanced at "Mr. Downman's" Bulletins, you will realize at -once that here is no ordinary vendor of wines. Wine to "Mr. Downman" is -a serious matter. Opening a bottle is an exquisite ceremony; drinking is -a sacrament. I once lunched with "Mr. Downman" in his cool Dutch kitchen -"over the shop," and each course was lovingly cooked and served by his -own hands, with suitable wines and liqueurs. It was a lesson in simple -and courtly living. How pleasant the homes of England might be if our -housewives would pay a little attention to correct kitchen and table -amenities. "Mr. Downman" would be a public benefactor if he would open a -School of Kitchen Wisdom where the little suburban wife might sit at his -feet and learn of him. Yes, I know that there are many schools of -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>cookery and housewifery, but these places are managed by people who -only know how to cook. "Mr. Downman" would bring to the task all those -little elegancies which make a dinner not merely satisfactory, but a -refinement of joy. Feeding, like all functions of the human body, is a -vulgar business anyway, but here is a man who can raise it to the -dignity of a rite.</p> - -<p>Further, he has shown us, in those "Bulletins," how to turn advertising -into one of the minor arts. Perhaps of all the enormities which the -nineteenth century perpetrated in its efforts to make life unbearable, -the greatest was the debasing of trade. In the eighteenth century trade -was a serene occupation, as you may see by glancing at the files of the -old <i>Gentleman's Magazine</i>, <i>Mirror</i>, <i>Spectator</i>, where announcements -of goods and merchandise were made in fine flowing English. -Advertisement was then a matter of grace, of flourish and address; for -people had leisure in which to receive gradual impressions. The -merchants of that day did not scream at you; they sat with you over the -fire, and held you in pleasant converse, sometimes, in their talk, -throwing off some persiflage or apothegm that has become immortal. There -was a Mr. George Farr,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> a grocer, <i>circa</i> 1750, who issued some -excellent trade tickets from the "Beehive and Three Sugar Loaves"; -little cards, embellished with dainty woodcuts that bring to mind an -Elzevir bookplate; the pictures a sheer joy to look upon, the prose a -delicate pomp of words that delights the ear. Then there were the trade -cards of the Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' Company of the eighteenth -century, each one the production of a true artist (Hogarth did several), -as well as the tobacco advertisements of the same period. In the latter -case, not only were the cards works of art, but poetry was wooed and won -for the cause. Near the old Surrey Theatre lived one John Mackey, who -sang the praise of his wares in rhyme and issued playbills purporting to -announce new tragedies under such titles as <i>My Snuff-Box</i>, <i>The Indian -Weed</i>, <i>The True Friend, or Arrivals from Havannah</i>, <i>The Last Pinch</i>, -and so on. The cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century also found time -to indite delicious morsels of prose and prepare quaint and harmonious -pictures for the delight of their patrons. Mr. Chippendale and Mr. -Heppelwhite were most industrious in this direction, and the Society of -Upholsterers and Cabinet Makers issued, in 1765,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> a work now very much -sought after: <i>The Cabinet and Chair Makers' Real Friend and Companion</i>.</p> - -<p>But then, snorting and hustling like a provincial alderman, in came the -nineteenth century, with its gospel of Speed-up; and the result was that -fair fields and stately streets scream harshly in your ears at every -turn:—</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Drink Bingo.</span><br /> -It is the Best.</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Eat Dinkydux.</span><br /> -You'll hate it at First.</p> - -<p>This sort of thing continued for many decades, when, happily, its -potency became attenuated, and some genius discovered that people were -not always responsive to screams; that, after all, the old way was better.</p> - -<p>Thus literature returned and linked arms once again with trade. Partly, -the circularizing dodge was responsible for this, since, in the -circular, the bald statement was hardly good enough. It was found that -subtle means must be employed if you are striving to catch a man's -attention at the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>breakfast-table, when sleep still crawls like a slug -about the brain and temper is uncertain. Nothing is so riling to the -educated person as to have ungrammatical circulars dropped in his -letter-box. Their effect is that he heartily detests the article -advertised, not because he has tried it and found it wanting, but -because of the split infinitive or the infirm phrase. So the whoop and -the yell gave place to the full-flowered essay sprigged with the -considered phrase. And to my mind the best of all contemporary efforts -in this direction are "Mr. Downman's" "Bulletins," of which I have a -complete set. Here a fastidious pen is delightfully employed; and not -the pen only, but the taste of the book-lover. Indeed, they are lovable -productions, having all the gracious response to the eye and the touch -of Mr. Arthur Humphreys' anthologies of seventeenth-century poetry. -Everything—format, type, paper, and Elian style—breathes an air of -serendipity.</p> - -<p>The first part of each "Bulletin" consists of a number of essays on -questions pertaining to wine and wine-drinking; the second half is a -catalogue of "Mr. Downman's" wines and their current prices, with -specimen labels, which are such gentle harmonies of line and colour that -one is tempted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> to start collecting them. "Mr. Downman" opens his -addresses in the grand manner:—</p> - -<p class="center"><i>My Lords, Reverend Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen.</i></p> - -<p>And if you love your Elia, then you must read "Mr. Downman" on Decanters -and Decanting, On Corkscrews, On How to Drink Wine, On Bottling, On -Patriotism and Wines, On the Suiting of Food to Wine, On Wines at -Picnics. His sharp-flavoured prose, full of sly nuances and coquettish -conceits, has all the tone of the best claret. Hear him on salads:—</p> - -<blockquote><p>This is the time of salads. And a good salad means good oil. It -also means good vinegar, or a fresh and juicy lime or lemon. Now -the Almighty has given us better tools for salad-making than any -wooden fork or spoon. In conditions of homely intimacy, a -salad-maker, when all is ready, will wash his hands well and long -as the moment approaches for serving the bowl. He will shun common -or perfumed soaps, and will use nothing but a soap made from olive -oil. Having dried his hands perfectly on a warm, clean towel, he -will finally whisk the cup of dressing into homogeneity, will pour -its contents over the salad, and will immediately proceed to wring -the leaves in the liquid as a washerwoman wrings clothes in soapy -water. (How horrid!) In doing this he will spoil the appearance of -come of the leaves, but he will have a salad fit for the gods.</p></blockquote> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span></p><p>After sampling a noble Madeira in his cellar cool, in William and Mary -Yard, we resumed our crawl, and in the black evening made a tour of -other of the old places. At the Café de l'Europe, Mr. Jacobs, leader of -the band, played for us a few old waltzes and morceaux reeking of the -spirit of 1912; but even he did not handle the fiddle, or seem to care -to handle it, in his old happy manner. Like the rest of us, I suppose, -he felt that it wasn't worth while; it didn't matter. We called at the -"Gambrinus," now owned by a Belgian; at the old "Sceptre," for a -coupon's worth of boiled beef; and so to the Café Royal.</p> - -<p>Here we received a touch or two from the old times. War has killed many -lovely things, but, though it maim and break, it cannot wholly kill the -things of the spirit, and in the "Royal" we found that art was still a -living thing; ideas were still being discussed as though they mattered. -Epstein and Augustus John, both in uniform, were there, and Austin -Harrison had his usual group of poets. It was reassuring to see the old -domino-playing Frenchmen, who seem part of the fixtures of the place, in -their accustomed corner. The girls seemed to have packed away their -affrighting futurist gowns, and were arrayed more<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> soberly. That night -they seemed to be more like human creatures, and less like deliberate -Bohemians.</p> - -<p>I am not overfond of the Café Royal, but it is one of the West End shows -which visitors feel they must see; and when any provincial visitors -wonder: "Why is the Café Royal?" I have one answer for them: "Henri -Murger."</p> - -<p>It is certain that, but for Murger, there would be no Chelsea and no -Café Royal. That man has a lot to answer for. I doubt if any one man -(I'm not including kings) has wrought so much havoc in young lives. He -meant to warn youth of danger; he actually drove youth towards it.</p> - -<p>Any discussion which seeks to name the most dangerous book in the world -is certain to bring mention of Rousseau's <i>Confessions</i>, of Paine's <i>Age -of Reason</i>, of Artzibashef's <i>Sanine</i>, of Baudelaire's <i>Fleurs du Mal</i>, -and other works of subversive tendency. The one book which has really -done more harm to young people than any other is seldom remembered in -this connection. That book is <i>Scènes de la Vie de Bohême</i>; and it is -dangerous, not that it contains a line of obscenity or blasphemy, not -that it teaches evil as higher than good, but because it founded a cult -and taught<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> young people how to ruin their lives. Bohemianism has, of -course, existed since the world began; rebels have always been; but it -remained for Murger to find a name for it and make a cult of it.</p> - -<p>The dangers of this cult to young people lay not in its being an evil -cult, but in its being perhaps as fine a cult as any of the world's -great creeds: the cult of human sympathy and generosity. The Bohemian -makes friends with all kinds and all creeds—sinners and saints, rich -and poor; he cares nothing so long as they be kindly. And there lay the -danger, for the blood of youth, freed from all restraint, was certain to -overdo it. It became a cult of excess. Murger died, but he left behind -him a very bitter legacy to the coming generation. As that legacy passed -through the years it gathered various adhesions—such as Wilde's "In -order to be an artist it is first necessary to ruin one's health," and -Flaubert's "Nothing succeeds like excess"; so that very soon art -colonies became things discredited, unpleasant to the nostrils of the -righteous.</p> - -<p>Murger himself saw the life very clearly, for he described it as "Vie -gai et terrible"; and he takes no pains to present to us only the -lighter, warmer side of it. He shows us everything; yet,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> so diabolical -is his manner, that, even after passing the tragedy of the closing -pages, the book and the life it pictures call to every one of us with -song in his blood and the spirit of April in his heart.</p> - -<p>It first appeared as a feuilleton in a Paris daily, and Murger, with -characteristic insouciance, wrote his instalments only a few hours -before the time when they were due for the printer; and when he was -stumped for material, he invented a little story. Hence that singularly -beautiful tale, slammed into the middle of the book—the Story of -Francine's Muff—which forms the opening scene of Puccini's opera -founded on the novel. The book has neither balance nor cohesion, and in -this it catches its note from its theme. It is a cinematographic -succession of scenes, tender and passionate and gay; swift and hectic. -He invented and employed the picture-palace manner in literature before -the picture-palace was even conceived. The very style is feverish, and -from it one visualizes the desperately merry Bohemian slaving with pen -and paper in his high garret, and whipping his flagging brain with -fierce stimulant, while the printer's boy sits on the doorstep.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p><p>It stands alone. There is no book in the literature of the world quite -like it. It is the challenge of youth and beauty to the world; and if -we—grown wise and weary in the struggle—find a note of ferocity and -extravagance in the challenge, then let us judge with understanding, and -remember that it is a case of the fine and the weak against the brutal -and the ignorant. Murger's voice is the voice of protesting youth. He is -illogical; so is youth. He is furious; so is youth. He is heroic; so is -youth. He is half-mad with indignation and half-mad with the joy of -living; so is youth. It is by its very waywardness and disregard of -values that the book captures us.</p> - -<p>There is no other book in which the spirit of Paris breathes more -easily. Here we have the essential Paris, just as in Thomas Dekker we -have the essential London. Poets, novelists and essayists have set -themselves again and again to ensnare the elusive Paris between the -covers of a book; but Murger alone—though he writes of Paris in -1830—has succeeded. Those who have never been to Paris should first -read his book; then, when they do go, they will experience the sense of -coming back to some known place.</p> - -<p>It was this insidious book that first tempted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> youth to escape from a -hidebound world; showed it the way out—a way beset by delightful -hazards. It offered to all the golden boys and girls a new Utopia, and -they were fain to visit it. That it was a false world troubled them not -at all. The green glass, the delirious midnight hours, and the pale -loveliness of Mimi and Musette were, perhaps, shackles as binding and as -fearful as those of Convention. But anything to escape from the irk and -thrall of their narrow realities; so away they went, and the end of the -story is written in the archives of the Morgue.</p> - -<p>After seventy years, however, the middle way has been found. There are -few tragedies to-day in the Quartier Latin, and very little gaiety or -kindliness; none of the old adventurous spirit. Things are going too -well in the studio-world these days. Chelsea and Montmartre have been -invaded by the American dilettanti, whose lives are one long struggle to -be Bohemians on a thousand a year. If, however, there be those who -regard this state of things as an improvement on the old, then let it be -remembered that this way was only found after Murger had wrecked his own -life and the lives of those who followed so gaily the unkind path down -which he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> led them. It is a pitiful catalogue; the more pitiful since so -many of the young dead are anonymous—the young men who might, had they -lived, have given the world so much of beauty, but who were unable to -pull up short of the precipice. Some of them, of course, we know: Gerard -de Nerval, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Ernest Dowson; and -their London monument is the Café Royal.</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>At half-past nine all fun ceased, but we had picked up a bunch from -Fleet Street, one of whom was taking home two bottles of whisky. So we -moved to "another place," and ordered black coffees which drank -tolerably well—after some swift surreptitious business with a -corkscrew. Later, we strolled across Oxford Street to what remained of -the German Quarter. We visited various coffee-bars, where our genial -comrade with the bottles again did his duty; did it beautifully, did it -splendidly, did it with Vine Street at his ear. And in a grey street off -Tottenham Court Road we found a poor man's cabaret. In the back room of -a coffee-bar an entertainment was proceeding. Two schonk boys, in straw -hats, were at a piano, assisted by an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> anæmic girl and a real coal-black -coon, who gave us the essential rag-times of the South. The place was -packed with the finest collection of cosmopolitan toughs I had ever seen -in one room. The air, physical and moral, was hardly breathable, and as -the boys were spoiling for a row, one misinterpreted glance would have -brought trouble—and lots of it. At different tables, voices were raised -in altercation, when not in lusty song, and the general impression the -place gave me was that it was a squalid, dirty model of the old -Criterion Long Bar. All the meaner, more desperate citizens of the -law-breaking world were gathered here; and, though we had broken a few -by-laws ourselves that night, we were not anxious to be led into any -more shattering of the Doraic tables. So at midnight we adjourned to -"another place," and drank dry gingers until three o'clock in the -morning. Then, to a Turkish Bath, and so to bed; not very merry, but as -cheered in the spirit as the humble, useless citizen is allowed to be in -a miserable, hole-and-corner way in war-time.</p> - -<p>It had been a sorry experience, this round of visits, in 1917, to -quarters last seen in 1914; and it made me curious to know how other -familiar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> nooks had received the wanton assault of kings. In the -haphazard sketches that follow I have tried to catch the external -war-time atmosphere of a few of the old haunts, so far as a poor -reporter may. Later, perhaps, a better hand than mine will discover for -us the essential soul of London under siege; and these rough notes may -be of some service, since all remembrance of that time was blown away -from most minds by the maroons of Armistice Day.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p> - -<h2>BACK TO DOCKLAND</h2> - -<p>From my earliest perceiving moments, docks and railway stations have -been, for me, the most romantic spots of the city in which I was born -and bred. Quays and wharves, cuts, basins, reaches, steel tracks and -passenger trains, and all that belonged to the life of the waterside and -the railway, spoke to me of illimitable travel and distant, therefore -desirable, things.</p> - -<p>This feeling I share, I suppose, with millions of other men and children -who have been reared in coast cities, and whose minds respond to the -large invitations offered by sooty smoke-stacks or the dim outline of a -station roof. And if these things pierced the complacence of one's days -in the past, how much deeper and more significant their message in those -four dreadful years, when men fared forth in ships and trains to new -perils unimagined in the quieter years.</p> - -<p>That apart, I see docks and railway stations not in their economic or -historic aspect, but in the picturesque light, as, perhaps, the most -emphatic<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> glory of London. For London's major architectural beauties I -care little. Abbeys, cathedrals, old churches, museums, leave me cold; -the fine shudder about the shoulders I suffer most sharply before those -haphazard wizardries of brick and iron flung together by the exigencies -of modern commerce. Their fortuitous ugliness achieves a new beauty. A -random eye-full of such townscapes may yield only an impression of -squalor, but many acres of squalor produce, by their very vastness, -something of the sublime. Belching chimneys, flaring furnaces, the -solemn smell of wet coal mingled with that of tar and bilge-water, and -the sight of brown sails and surly funnels and swinging cranes—in these -misshapen masses I find that delight that others receive from -contemplation of Salisbury Cathedral or a spire of Wren's.</p> - -<p>The docks of London lie closely in a group—Wapping, Shadwell, -Rotherhithe, Poplar, Limehouse, Isle of Dogs, Blackwall, and North -Woolwich, and each possesses its own fine-flavoured character. You may -know at once, without other evidence than that afforded by the sense of -smell, whether you stand in London Docks, Surrey Commercial Docks, West -India Docks, Millwall Docks, or Victoria and Albert Docks. To me,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> the -West and East India Docks are soaked in the bright odour and placid -clamour of the East, with something of feminine allure in the quality of -their appeal. Victoria and Albert Docks I find gaunt and colourless. -Surrey Commercial Docks remind me of some coarse merchant from the Royal -Exchange, stupidly vulgar in speech, clothes and character.</p> - -<p>The East and West India Docks I have treated elsewhere. Of the others, -the most exciting are Millwall and London Docks—though of the latter I -fear one must now speak in the past tense. Shadwell High Street and St. -George's, which border the London Docks, are no longer themselves. All -is now charged with gloom, broken only by the anæmic lights of a few -miserable mission-halls and coffee-bars for the use of Scandinavian -seamen. Awhile back, before this monstrous jest of war, there was a -certain raw gaiety about the place brought thither by these same blond -vikings; but, since the frenetic agitations of certain timorous people -against "all aliens"—as though none but an alien can be a spy—these -men are not now allowed to land from their boats, and Shadwell is the -poorer of a touch of colour. One might often meet them and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> fraternize -with them in the coffee-bars and beer-shops (there are few -"public-houses" in these streets), and hear their view of things. -Bearded giants they were, absurdly out of the picture in these tiny, -sawdusted rooms, against the hideous bedizenment of the London house of -refreshment. They would engage in rich, confused, interminable -conversations, using a language which, to the stranger, sounded like a -medley of hiccoughs and snorts; and there would be vehement arguments -and a large fanning of the breeze. In the upper rooms, on Saturday -evenings, one might have singing and dancing to a cracked piano and a -superannuated banjo, and there the girls of the quarter would appear, -and would do themselves well on seafarers' hospitality.</p> - -<p>But the free-and-easy atmosphere is gone. You enter any bar and are at -once under a cloud. Suspicion has been bred in all these docks men by -the cheap Press. The patriotic stevedores regard you as a disguised -alien. The landlord wonders whether you are one of those blasted -newspaper men or are from the Yard. The visitors to the bars are in -every case insipid; none of the ripe character that once lit such places -to sudden life. Abrupt acquaintance and casual <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>conversation are not to -be had. The beer is filthy. The good Burton is gone, and in its place -you have a foul concoction which has not the mellowing effect of honest -British beer or the exhilarating effect of the light continental brews. -Shadwell High Street is now a dirty lane of poor lodging-houses, foul -courts, waste tracts of land, mission halls exuding a stale air of -diseased hospitality, and those nondescript establishments, ships' -chandlers, with their miscellanies of apparently useless lumber, stored -in such a heap that it would seem impossible to find any article -immediately required. In short, social life here is as it should be, -according to the unwearied in war-work.</p> - -<p>Still, there are some adorable morsels of domestic architecture to be -found up narrow alleys: old cottages and tumbling buildings, mellowed by -centuries of association with many weathers and with men and ships from -the green and golden seas that lie beyond the muddy waters of London -River; and these supply one touch of animation to the prevailing -moribundity.</p> - -<p>Very different are the Millwall Docks. Little material beauty here, but -something much better—good company, and plenty of it. The docks lie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> at -the south of the Isle of Dogs, amid a flat stretch of dreary warehouses -and factories, and you approach them by a long curving street of poor -cottages and "general" shops. The island is a place of harsh discords, -for Cubitt's works are established here, and the ring of hammers rises -above the roar of furnaces, and the vociferous life of the canals above -the scream of the siren and the moan of the hooter, and the concerted -voices of the island seem to cry the accumulated agony of the East End. -Great arc lights, suspended from above, when cargoes are being unloaded -by night, fling into sudden illumination or shadow the faces and figures -of the groups of workers as they stagger up the gangways with their -loads, and lend to the whole scene an air of theatrical illusion. In the -bars you find sweaty engineers and grimy stokers. Here is a prolific -field of character; mostly British, though a few Lascars may be found, -drinking solitary drinks or parading the streets with their customary -air of bewilderment. Here are nut-brown toilers of the sea, whose -complexions suggest that they have been trapped by that advertiser in -the popular Press who offers his toilet wares with the oracular -pronouncement that "Handsome Men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Are Slightly Sunburnt." Here are men -who have circled the seven seas. Here, calm and taciturn, is a man who -knows Pitcairn Islanders to speak to; who produces from one pocket a -carved ivory god, presented to him by some native of Java, and from the -other Old Timothy's One-Horse Snip for the Big Race.</p> - -<p>Under the meagre daylight and the opulent shadows of these docks you may -drink beer and listen to casual chit-chat that carries you round the -world and into magical hidden places, and brings you back with a jerk to -the Isle of Dogs.</p> - -<p>"Yerce. Two bob a pound the 'Ome an' Colonial was arstin' the missus for -the stuff. I soon went round an' told 'em where they could put it. Well, -'sI was sayin', after we left Rangoon, we——"</p> - -<p>The land in this district consists, for the most part, of oozing marsh, -so that, when a gale sweeps from the mouth of the river, it reaches the -island with unexpended force. Then the sky seems to scream in harmony -with the rattling windows. Saloon signs swing grotesquely. The river -assumes a steely hue, heaving and rushing, sucking against staples, -wharves and barges, and rising in ineffectual splashes against the gates -of the docks,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> until you seek the public bar of the "Dog and -Thunderstorm" as a sanctuary. There, amid the babble of pewter and glass -and the punctuation of the cash register, you forget any London gale in -listening to stories of typhoons, cyclones, and other freaks of the -elements common to the Pacific and the meeting of the waters round the -Horn.</p> - -<p>Many hours have I squandered on the ridiculous bridge of the Isle of -Dogs, in sunlight or twilight, grey mist or velvet darkness, building my -dreams about the boats as they dropped downstream to the oceans of the -world and their ports with honey-syllabled names—Swatow, Rangoon, -Manila, Mozambique, Amoy—returning in normal times, with fantastic -cargoes of cornelian and jade, malachite and onyx, fine shapes of ivory -and coral, sharp spices of betel-nut and bhang, and a secret tin or two -of li-un—perhaps not returning at all. There I would stand, giving to -each ship some name and destination born of my own fancy, and endowing -it with a marvellous meed of adventure.</p> - -<p>It is an exciting experience for the landsman Cockney, strolling the -streets about the docks, to rub shoulders with other little Cockneys, in -blue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> serge and cotton scarves, who have accepted the non-committal -invitation offered by the funnel and the rigging over the walls of -Limehouse Basin. One remembers the story of the pale curate at the -church concert, at which one of the entertainers had sung a setting of -Kipling's "Rolling Down to Rio." "Ah, God!" he said, wringing his thin -hands, "that's what I often feel like.... Rolling down to Rio." And in -these streets one meets insignificant little men who have done it; who -have rolled down to Rio and gone back to Mandalay, and seen the dawn -come up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay.</p> - -<p>And I am proud to have nodding acquaintance with them. I am glad they -have drunk beer with me. I am glad I have clicked the chopsticks in -Limehouse Causeway with the yellow boys who can talk of Canton and Siam -and North Borneo and San Francisco. I am glad I have salaamed noble men -of India at the Asiatics' Home, and heard their stories of odourous -villages in the hills and of the seas about India, and of strange -islands which mere Cockneys pick out on the map with an uncertain -forefinger—Andamans, Nicobars, Solomons, and so forth. I am glad from -having met men who know Java as I know London; who<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> know the best places -in Tokio for tea and the most picturesque spots in Formosa; who can -direct me to a good hotel in Singapore, should I ever go there, and who -know where Irish whisky can be bought in Sarawak. Why study guidebooks, -or consult with the omniscient Mr. Cook, when you may find about the -great ornamental gates of the docks of London natives of all corners of -the world who can provide you with a hundred exclusive tips which will -make smooth the traveller's way over every obstacle or untoward -incident? Indeed, why travel at all, when you may travel by proxy; when, -by hanging round the docks of London, you may travel, on the lips of -these men, through jungle, ocean, white town, palm grove, desert island, -and suffer all the sharp sensations of standing silent upon a peak in -Darien, the while you are taking heartening draughts of mild and bitter -in the saloon bar of the "Star of the East"?</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CHINATOWN REVISITED</h2> - -<p>"Chinatown, my Chinatown, where the lights are low"—a fragment of a -music-hall song in praise of Chinatown which sticks ironically in my -memory. The fact that the lights are low applies at the time of writing -to the whole of London; and as for the word "Chinatown," which once -carried a perfume of delight, it is now empty of meaning save as -indicating a district of London where Chinamen live. To-day Limehouse is -without salt or savour; flat and unprofitable; and of all that it once -held of colour and mystery and the macabre, one must write in the past -tense. The missionaries and the Defence of the Realm Act have together -stripped it of all that furtive adventure that formerly held such lure -for the Westerner.</p> - -<p>It was in 1917 that I returned to it, after an absence of some years. In -that year I received an invitation that is rightly accepted as a -compliment: I was asked by Alvin Langdon Coburn to meet him at his -studio, and let him make from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> my face one of those ecstatic muddles of -grey and brown that have won for him the world's acknowledgment as the -first artist of the camera. Our meeting discovered a mutual enthusiasm -for Limehouse, and we arranged an excursion. There, we said to -ourselves, we shall find yet a taste of the pleasant things that the -world has forgotten: soft movement, solitude, little courtesies, as well -as wonderful things to buy. There we shall find sharp-flavoured things -to eat and drink, and josses and chaste carvings, and sharp knives. Oh, -and the tea, too—the little two-ounce packets of suey-sen at -sevenpence, that clothe the hour of five o'clock with delicate scents -and dreams.</p> - -<p>But the suey-sen was gone, done to death by the tea-rationing order. -Gone, too, was the bland iniquity of the place. Our saunter through -Pennyfields and the Causeway was a succession of disillusions. The -spirit of the commercial and controlled West breathed on us from every -side. All the dusky delicacies were suppressed. Dora had stepped in and -khyboshed the little haunts that once invited to curious amusement. -Opium, li-un, and other essences of the white poppy, secretly hoarded, -were fetching £30 per pound.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> The hop-hoads had got it in the neck, and -the odour of gin-seng floated seldom upon the air. The old tong feuds -had been suppressed by stern policing, and Thames Police Court had -become almost as suave and seemly as Rumpelmayer's. Even that joyous -festival, the Feast of the Lanterns, kept at the Chinese New Year, had -fallen out of the calendar. The Asiatic seamen had been made good by an -Order in Council. All for the best, no doubt; yet how one missed the -bizarre flame and salt of the old Quarter.</p> - -<p>We found Pennyfields and the Causeway uncomfortably crowded, for the -outward mail sailings were reduced, and the men who landed in the early -days had been unable to get away. So the streets and lodging-houses were -thronged with Arabs, Malays, Hindoos, South Sea Islanders, and East -Africans; and the Asiatics' Home for Destitute Orientals was having the -time of its life. Every cubicle in the hotel was engaged, and many -wanderers were sleeping where they could. Those with money paid for -their accommodation; for the others, a small grant from the India Office -secured them board and bed until such time as proper arrangements could -be made. The kitchens were working overtime, for each<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> race or creed has -its own inexorable laws in the matter of food. Some eat this and some -eat that, and others will eat anything—save pork—provided that prayers -are spoken over it by an appointed priest.</p> - -<p>At half-past nine an occasional tipsy Malay might be seen about the -streets, but the old riots and mêlées were things of the past. In the -little public-house at the corner of Pennyfields we found the usual -crowd of Chinks and white girls, and the electric piano was gurgling its -old sorry melodies, and beer and whisky were flowing; but the whole -thing was very decorous and war-timish.</p> - -<p>We did, however, find one splash of colour. A new and very gaudy -restaurant had lately been opened in a narrow by-street, and here we -took a meal of noodle, chow-chow and awabi, and some tea that was a -mocking echo of the old suey-sen. The room was crowded with yellow boys -and a few white girls. Suddenly, from a corner table, occupied by two of -the ladies, came a sharp stir. A few heated words rattled on the air, -and then one rose, caught the other a resounding biff in the neck, and -screamed at her:—</p> - -<p>"You dare say I'm not respectable! I <i>am</i> respectable. I come from -Manchester."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p><p>This evidence the assaulted one refused to regard as final. She rose, -reached over the table, and clawed madly at her opponent's face and -clothes. Then they broke from the table, and fought, and fell, and -screamed, and delivered the hideous animal noises made by those who see -red. At once the place boiled. I've never been in a Chinese rebellion, -but if the clamour and the antics of the twenty or so yellow boys in -that café be taken as a faint record of such an affair, it is a good -thing for the sensitive to be out of. To the corner dashed waiters and -some customers, and there they rolled one another to the floor in their -efforts to separate the girls, while others stood about and screamed -advice in the various dialects of the Celestial Empire. At last the -girls were torn apart, and struggled insanely in half a dozen grips as -they hurled inspired thoughts at one another, or returned to the old -chorus of "Dirty prostitute." "I ain't a prostitute. I come from -Manchester. Lemme gettater."</p> - -<p>And with a final wrench the respectable one did get at her. She broke -away, turned to a table, and with three swift gestures flung cup, saucer -and sauce-boat into the face of her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>traducer. That finished it. The -proprietor had stood aloof while the girls tore each other's faces and -bit at uncovered breasts. But the sight of his broken crockery acted as -a remover of gravity. He dashed down the steps, pushed aside assistants -and advisers, grabbed the nearest girl—the respectable one—round the -waist, wrestled her to the top of the marble stairs that lead from the -door to the upper restaurant, and then, with a sharp knee-kick, sent her -headlong to the bottom, where she lay quiet.</p> - -<p>Whereupon her opponent crashed across a table in hysterics, kicking, -moaning, laughing and sobbing: "You've killed 'er—yeh beast. You've -killed 'er. She's my pal. Oo. Oo. Oooooowh!"</p> - -<p>This lasted about a minute. Then, suddenly, she arose, pulled herself -together, ran madly down the stairs, picked up her pal, and staggered -with her to the street. At once, without a word of comment, the company -returned placidly to its eating and drinking; and this affair—an event -in the otherwise dull life of Limehouse—was over.</p> - -<p>Years ago, such affairs were of daily occurrence, and the West India -Dock Road became a legend to frighten children with at night. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> the -times change. Chinatown is a back number, and there now remains no -corner to which one may take the curious visitor thirsting for exotic -excitement—unless it be the wilds of Tottenham.</p> - -<p>The Chinatown of New York, too, has become respectable. The founder of -that colony, Old Nick, died recently, in miserable circumstances, after -having acquired thousands of dollars by his enterprise. From the high -estate of Founder of the Chinatown he dropped to the position of -panhandler, swinging on the ears of his compatriots. About forty years -ago, when Mott Street, Pell Street, and Doyers Street were the territory -of the Whyos, the Bowery boys and the Dead Rabbits, Old Nick crept -stealthily into a small corner. He started a cigar-store in Mott Street, -making his own cigars. He was honest, thrifty, and possessed a lust for -work. The cigar-store prospered, and soon, feeling lonely, as the only -Chink among so many white boys, he passed the word to his countrymen -about the big spenders of the district. On his advice, they closed their -laundries and came to live alongside, to get their pickings from the -dollars that were flying about. Chinatown was started, and rapidly -developed, and its atmosphere was sedulously "arranged"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> for the benefit -of conducted tourists from uptown, and the tables rattled with the dice -and fluttered with the cards. This success was the beginning of Old -Nick's failure. At the tables he lost all: his capital, his store, his -home, and his proud position. For a time he managed to survive in fair -circumstances; but soon the hatchet men became too numerous, and their -tong feuds too deadly, and their gambling tricks too notorious. Police -raids and the firm hand of the higher Chinese merchants put a stop to -the prosperity of Chinatown, and soon it fell away to nothing, and Old -Nick passed his last days on the sporadic charity of a white woman whom -he had in happier days befriended.</p> - -<p>And to-day Pell Street and Mott Street are as quiet and virtuous as -Pennyfields and the Causeway. Coburn and I left the old waterside -streets with feelings of dismay, tasting ashes in the mouth. We tried to -draw from an old storekeeper, a topside good-fella chap, some expression -of his own attitude to present conditions, but with his usual -impassivity he passed it over. How could this utterly debased and -miserable one who dares to stand before noble and refined ones from -Office of Printed Leaves, who have honoured his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> totally inadequate -establishment with symmetrical presences, presume to offer to exalted -intelligences utterly insignificant thoughts that find lodging in -despicable breast?</p> - -<p>Clearly he was handing us the lemon, so we took it, and departed for the -more reckless joys of Hammersmith, where Coburn has his home. On the -journey back I remembered the drabness we had just left, and then I -remembered Limehouse as it was—a pool of Eastern filth and metropolitan -squalor; a place where unhappy Lascars, discharged from ships they were -only too glad to leave, were at once the prey of rascally lodging-house -keepers, mostly English, who fleeced them over the fan-tan tables and -then slung them to the dark alleys of the docks. A wicked place; yes, -but colourful.</p> - -<p>Listen to the following: two extracts from an East End paper of thirty -years back:—</p> - -<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Thames Police Court.</span></p> - -<blockquote><p>John Lyons, who keeps a common lodging-house, which he has -neglected to register, appeared before Mr. Ingram in answer to a -summons taken out by Inspector Price. J. Kirby, 53A, inspector of -common lodging-houses, stated that on Saturday night last he -visited defendant's house, which was in a most filthy and -dilapidated condition. In the first floor he found a Chinaman -sleeping in a cupboard or small closet, filled with cobwebs. The -wretched creature was without a shirt, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> was covered with a few -rags. The Chinaman was apparently in a dying state, and has since -expired. An inquest was held on his remains, and it was proved he -died of fever, and had been most grossly neglected. The room in -which the Chinaman lay was without bedding or furniture. In the -second room he found Aby Callighan, an Irishwoman, who said she -paid 1s. 6d. a week rent. In the third room was Abdallah, a Lascar, -who said he paid 3s. per week, and a Chinaman squatting on a chair -smoking. In the fourth room was Dong Yoke, a Chinaman, who said he -paid 2s. 6d. per week for the privilege of sleeping on the bare -boards; two Lascars on bedsteads smoking opium, and the dead body -of a Lascar lying on the floor, and covered with an old rug. In the -fifth room was an Asiatic seaman, named Peru, who said he paid 3s. -per week, and eleven other Lascars, six of whom were sleeping on -bedsteads, three on the floor, and two on chairs. If the house were -registered, only four persons would be allowed in the room. The -effluvium, caused by smoking opium and the over-crowded state of -the room, was most nauseous and intolerable. In the kitchen, which -was very damp, he found Sedgoo, who said he had to pay 2s. a week, -and eight Chinamen huddled together. The stench here was very bad. -If the house were registered, no one would have been allowed to -inhabit the kitchen at all. He should say the house was quite unfit -for a human habitation. The floors of the rooms, the stairs and -passages were in a filthy and dilapidated condition, covered with -slime, dirt, and all kinds of odious substances.</p> - -<p>The men had been hung up with weights tied to their feet; flogged -with a rope; pork, the horror of the Mohammedan, served out to them -to eat, and the insult carried further by violently ramming the -tail of a pig into their mouths and twisting the entrails of the -pig round their necks; they were forced up aloft at the point of -the bayonet, and a shirt all gory with Lascar blood was exhibited -on the trial, and all this proved in evidence. One man leaped -overboard to escape his tormentor; a boat was about to be lowered -to save the drowning man, but it was prohibited, and he was left to -perish. The captain escaped out of the country, forfeiting his bail -and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> abandoning his ship, leaving his chief officer to be brought -to trial and to undergo punishment for his share of this cruel -transaction.</p></blockquote> - -<p>In those days you might stand in West India Dock Road, on a June -evening, in a dusk of blue and silver, the air heavy with the reek of -betel nut, chandu and fried fish; the cottages stewing themselves in -their viscid heat. Against the skyline rose Limehouse Church, one of the -architectural beauties of London. Yellow men and brown ambled about you, -and a melancholy guitar tinkled a melody of lost years. Then, were -colour and movement; the whisper of slippered feet; the adventurous -uncertainty of shadow; heavy mist, which never lifts from Poplar and -Limehouse; strange voices creeping from nowhere; and occasionally the -rasp of a gramophone delivering records of interminable Chinese dramas. -The soul of the Orient wove its spell about you, until, into this -evanescent atmosphere, came a Salvation Army chorus bawling a lot of -emphatic stuff about glory and blood, or an organ with "It ain't all -lavender!" and at once the clamour and reek of the place caught you.</p> - -<p>Thirty years ago—that was its time of roses. Then, indeed, things did -happen: things so strong that the perfume of them lingers to this day, -and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> one can, remembering them, sometimes sympathize with those who say -"<span class="smcap">Limehouse</span>" in tones of terror. One of my earliest memories is of the -West India Dock Road on a wet November afternoon. A fight was on between -a Chink and a Malay. The Chink used a knife in an upward direction, -forcefully. The Malay got the Chink down, and jumped with heavy boots on -the bleeding yellow face.</p> - -<p>Some time ago, when my ways were cast in that district, the boys would -loaf at a kind of semi-private music-hall, attached to a public-house, -where one of the Westernized Chinks, a San Sam Phung, led the band, and -freely admitted all friends who bought him drinks. Every night he -climbed to his chair, and his yellow face rose like a November sun over -the orchestra-rail. When the conductor's tap turned on the flow of the -dozen instruments, which blared rag-tag music, we shifted to the -babbling bar and tried to be amused by the show. It was the dustiest -thing in entertainment that you can imagine. To this day the hall stinks -of snarling song. Dusty jokes we had, dusty music, dusty dresses, dusty -girls to wear them, or take them off; and only the flogging of cheap -whisky to carry us through the evening.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> Solemn smokes of cut plug and -indifferent cigar swirled in a haze of lilac, and over the opiate air -San's fiddle would wail, surging up to the balcony's rim and the cloud -of corpse faces that swam above it. More and more mephitic the air would -grow, and noisier would become voice and foot and glass; until, with a -burst of lights, and the roar of the chord-off from the band, the end -would come, and we would tumble out into the great road where were the -winking river, and keen air and sanity.</p> - -<p>Later, the boys would shuffle along with San Sam Phung to his lodging -over a waterside wine-shop, crossing the crazy bridge into the Isle of -Dogs. Often, passing at midnight, you might have heard his heart-song -trickling from an open window. He cared only for the modern, Italianate -stuff, and would play it for hours at a time. Seated in the orchestra, -in his second-hand dress-suit and well-oiled hair, he looked about as -picturesque as a Bayswater boarding-house. But you should have seen him -afterwards, during the day, in his one-room establishment, radiant in -spangled dressing-gown and tempestuous hair, a cigarette at his lips, -his fiddle at his chin. It was worth sitting up late for. Then his face -would shine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> if ever a Chink's can, and his bow would tear the soul -from the fiddle in a fury of lyricism.</p> - -<p>Half his room was filled with a stove, which thrust a long neck of -piping ten feet in the wrong direction, and then swerved impulsively to -the window. In the corner was a joss. The rest of the room was littered -with fiddles and music. Over the stove hung a gaudy view of Amoy. He -never tired of talking of Amoy, his home. He longed to get back to -it—to flowers, blue waters, white towns. He lived only for the moment -when he might tuck his fiddle-case under his arm and return to Amoy, -home and beauty. Once started on the tawdry ribaldry which he had to -play at the hall, his arm and fingers following mechanically the sheet -before him, he would set his fancies free, and, like a flock of -rose-winged birds, they took flight to Amoy. Music, for him, was just -melody—the graceful surface of things; in a word Amoy. Often he -confessed to a terrible fear that he would grow old and die among our -swart streets ere he could save enough to return. And he did. Full of -the poppy one dark night, he stepped over the edge of a wharf at -Millwall. Then, at the inquiry, it was discovered that his nostalgia for -Amoy was pure fake. He had never been there.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> He was born on a boat that -crawled up-river one foggy morning, and had never for a day gone out of -London.</p> - -<p>There were many other delightful creatures of Limehouse whose names lie -persistently on the memory. There was Afong, a chimpanzee who ran a -pen-yen joint. There was Chinese Emma, in whose establishment one could -go "sleigh-riding." There was Shaik Boxhoo, a gentleman who did -unpleasant things, and finally got religion and other advantages over -his less wily brothers, who got only the jug. Faults they had in plenty, -these throwbacks, but their faults were original. Every one of them was -a bit of sharp-flavoured character, individual and distinct.</p> - -<p>In those days there was a waste patch of wan grass, called The Gardens, -near the Quarter, and something like a band performed there once a week. -O Carnival, Carnival! There the local crowd would go, and there, to the -music of dear Verdi, light feet would clatter about the asphalt walk, -and there would happen what happens every Sunday night in those parts of -London where are parks, promenades, bandstands and monkeys' parades. In -the hot spangled dusk, the groups of girls, brave with best frocks and -daring ribbons,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> would fling their love and their laughter to all who -would have them. Through the plaintive music—poor Verdi! how like a -wheezy music-box his crinoline melodies sounded, even then!—would swim -little ripples of laughter when the girls were caressing or being -caressed; and always the lisp of feet and the whisk of darling frocks -kissing little black shoes.</p> - -<p>Near by was the old "Royal Sovereign," which had a skittle-alley. There -would gather the lousy Lascars, and there they would roll, bowl or -pitch. Then they would swill. Later, they would roll, bowl or pitch, -with a skinful of gin, through the reeling streets to whichever boat -might claim them.</p> - -<p>The black Lascars, unlike their yellow mates, are mostly disagreeable -people. There was, in those days, but one of them who even approached -affability. He was something of a Limehouse Wonder, for, in a sudden -fight over spilt beer, he showed amazing aptitude not only with his -fists, but also in ringcraft. Chuck Lightfoot, a local sport, happened -to see him, and took him in hand, and for some years he stayed in -Shadwell, putting one after another of the local lads to sleep. He -finished his ring career in a dockside saloon by knocking out an -offending white man who had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> chipped him about his colour. It was a foul -blow, and the man died. Pennyfields Polly got twelve months, and when he -came out he started on the poppy and the snow, for he was not allowed to -fight again, and life held nothing else for him. His friends tried to -dissuade him, on the ground that he was ruining his health—a sensible -argument to put to a man who had no interest in life; they might as well -have told an Arctic explorer, who had lost the trail, that his tie was -creeping up the back of his neck.</p> - -<p>It is curious how the boys cling to you after a brief interchange of -hospitalities. You drop into a beer-shack one evening, and you are sure -to find a friend. One makes so easily in these parts a connection, -salutations, fugitive intimacy. You are suddenly saluted, it may be by -that good old friend, Mr. Lo, the poor Indian, or John Sam Ling Lee. -Vaguely you recall the name. Yes; you stood him a drink, some ten years -ago. Where has he been? Oh, he found a boat ... went round the Horn ... -stranded at Lima ... been in Cuba some time ... got to Swatow later ... -might stay in London ... might get a boat on Saturday.</p> - -<p>But these casual encounters are now hardly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> to be had. So many boys, so -many places have disappeared. Blue Gate Fields, scene of many an Asiatic -demonism, is gone. The "Royal Sovereign"—the <i>old</i> "Royal -Sovereign"—is gone, and the Home for Asiatics reigns in its stead. The -hop-shacks about the Poplar arches and the closed courtyards and their -one-story cottages are no more. To-day—as I have said three times -already; stop me if I say it again—the glamorous shame of Chinatown has -departed. Nothing remains save tradition, which now and then is fanned -into life by such a case as that of the drugged actress. Yet you may -still find people who journey fearfully to Limehouse, and spend money in -its shops and restaurants, and suffer their self-manufactured -excitements while sojourning in its somnolent streets among the -respectable sons of Canton. The boys will not thank me for robbing them -of the soft marks who pay twenty shillings for a jade bangle, of the -kind sold in a sixpenny-halfpenny bazaar; so, anticipating their -celestial disapproval, this miserable prostrates himself and remains -bowed for their gracious pardon, and begs to be permitted to say that -the entirely inadequate benedictions of this one will be upon them until -the waning of the last moon.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p> - -<h2>SOHO CARRIES ON</h2> - -<p>Soho! Soho!</p> - -<p>Joyous syllables, in early times expressive of the delights of the -chase, and even to-day carrying an echo of nights of festivity, though -an echo only. How many thousand of provincials, seeing London, have been -drawn to those odourous byways that thrust themselves so briskly through -the staid pleasure-land of the West End—Greek Street, Frith Street, -Dean Street, Old Compton Street: a series of interjections breaking a -dull paragraph—where they might catch the true Latin temper and bear -away to the smoking-rooms of country Conservative clubs fulsome tales -that have made Soho already a legend. Indeed, I know one cautious lad -from Yorkshire, whose creed is that You Never Know and You Can't Be Too -Careful, who always furnishes himself with a loaded revolver when dining -with a town friend in Soho. I am not one to look sourly upon the simple -pleasures of the poor; I do not begrudge him his concocted dish of -thrills. I only mention<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> this trick of his because it proves again the -strange resurrective powers of an oft-buried lie. You may sweep, you may -garnish Soho if you will; but the scent of adventure will hang round it -still.</p> - -<p>But to-day the scent is very faint. The streets that once rang with -laughter and prodigal talk are in <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1917 charged with gloom; their -gentle noise is pitched in the minor key. These morsels of the South, -shovelled into the swart melancholies of central London, have lost their -happy summer tone. Charing Cross Road was always a streak of misery, -but, on the most leaden day, its side streets gave an impression of -light. Lord knows whence came the light. Not from the skies. Perhaps -from the indolently vivacious loungers; perhaps from the flower-boxes on -the window-sills, or the variegated shops bowered with pendant polonies, -in rainbow wrappings of tinfoil, and flasks of Chianti. One always -walked down Old Compton Street with a lilt, as to some carnival tune. -Nothing mattered. There were macaroni and spaghetti to eat, and Chianti -to drink; dishes of ravioli; cigars at a halfpenny a time and cigarettes -at six a penny; copies of frivolous comic-papers; and delicate glasses -of lire, a liqueur that carried you at the first sip to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> green-hued -Mediterranean. The very smell of the place was the smell of those -lovable little towns of the Midi.</p> - -<p>But all is now changed. Gone are the shilling tables-d'hôte and their -ravishing dishes. Gone is the pint of vin ordinaire at tenpence. Will -they ever come again, those gigantic, lamp-lit evenings, those Homeric -bob's-worths of hors-d'œuvre, soup, omelette, chicken, cheese and -coffee? Shall we ever again cross Oxford Street to the old German -Quarter and drink their excellent Pilsener and Munchner, in heartening -steins, and eat their leber-wurst sandwiches, and smoke their long, thin -cigars? Or seat ourselves in the Schweitzerhof, where four wonderful -dishes were placed before you at a cost of tenpence by some dastard spy, -in the pay of that invisible-cloak artist, the English Bolo?—who -doubtless reported to Berlin our conversation about Phyllis Monkman's -hair and Billy Merson's technique. Nay, I think not. The blight of -civilization is upon Soho. Many once cosy and memorable cafés are -closed. Other places have altered their note and become uncomfortably -English; while those that retain their atmosphere and their customers -have considerably changed their menu and cuisine. One-and-ninepence is -the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>lowest charge for a table-d'hôte—and pretty poor hunting at that. -The old elaborate half-crown dinners are now less elaborate and cost -four shillings. And the wine-lists—well, wouldn't they knock poor Omar -off his perch? I don't know who bought Omar's drinks, or whether he paid -for his own, but if he lived in Soho to-day he'd have a pretty thin time -either way—unless the factory price for tents had increased in -proportion with other things.</p> - -<p>Gone, too, is the delicious atmosphere of <i>laisser-faire</i> that made Soho -a refreshment of the soul for the visitors from Streatham and Ealing. -Soho's patrons to-day have a furtive, guilty look about them. You see, -they are trying to be happy in war-time. No more do you see in the cafés -the cold-eyed anarchists and the petty bourgeois and artisans from the -foreign warehouses of the locality. In their place are heavy-eyed women, -placid and monosyllabic, and much khaki and horizon blue. Many of the -British soldiers, officers and privates, are men who have not yet been -out, and are experimenting with their French among the French girls who -have taken the places of the swift-footed, gestic Luigi, François or -Alphonse; others have come from France, where they have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> discovered the -piquancy of French cooking, and desire no more the solidities of the -"old English" chop-house.</p> - -<p>Over all is an atmosphere of restraint. Gone are the furious argument -and the preposterous accord. Gone are the colour and the loud lights and -the evening noise. Soho is marking time, until the good days return—if -ever. Not in 1917 do you see Old Compton Street as a line of warm and -fragrant café-windows; instead, you stumble drunkenly through a dim, -murky lane, and take your chance by pushing the first black door that -exudes a smell of food. Gone, too, are those exotic foods that brought -such zest to the jaded palate. The macaroni and spaghetti now being -manufactured in London are poor substitutes for the real thing, being -served in long, flat strips instead of in the graceful pipe form of -other days. Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Gruyère, Port Salut, Strachini -and other enchanting cheeses are unobtainable; and you may cry in vain -for edible snails and the savoury stew of frogs' legs. True, the Chinese -café in Regent Street can furnish for the adventurous stomach such -trifles as black eggs (guaranteed thirty years old), sharks' fins at -seven shillings a portion, stewed seaweed, bamboo<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> shoots, and sweet -birds'-nests; but Regent Street is beyond the bounds of Soho.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, if you attend carefully, and if you are lucky, you may -still catch in Old Compton Street a faint echo of its graces and -picturesque melancholy. You may still see and hear the sombre Yid, the -furious Italian, the yodelling Swiss, and the deprecating French, -hanging about the dozen or so coffee-bars that have appeared since 1914. -A few of these places existed in certain corners of London long before -that date, but it is only lately that the Londoner has discovered them -and called for more. The Londoner—I offer this fact to all students of -national traits—must always lean when taking his refreshment. Certain -gay and festive gentlemen, who constitute an instrument of order called -the Central Control Board, forbid him to lean in those places where, of -old, he was accustomed to lean; at any rate, he is only allowed to lean -during certain defined hours. You might think that he would have gladly -availed himself of this opportunity for resting awhile by sitting at a -marble-topped table and drinking coffee or tea, or—horrid -thought!—cocoa. But no; he isn't happy unless he leans over his -refreshment; and the café-bar has <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>supplied his demands. There is -something in leaning against a bar which entirely changes one's outlook. -You may sit at a table and drink whisky-and-soda, and yet not achieve a -tithe of the expansiveness that is yours when you are leaning against a -bar and drinking dispiriting stuff like coffee or sirop. Maybe the -physical attitude reacts on the mind, and tightens up certain cords or -sinews, or eases the blood-pressure; anyway, fears, doubts, and cautions -seem to vanish in these little corners of France, and momentarily the -old animation of Soho returns.</p> - -<p>In these places you may perchance yet capture for a fleeting space the -will-o'-the-wisperie of other days: movement and festal colour; laughter -and quick tears; the warm jest and the darkling mystery that epitomize -the city of all cities; and the wanton, rose-winged graces that flutter -about the fair head of M'selle Lolotte, as she hands you your café -nature and an April smile for sweetening, carry to you a breath of the -glitter and spaciousness of old time. You do not know Lolotte, perhaps! -Thousand commiserations, M'sieu! What damage! Is Lolotte lovely and -delicate? But of a loveliness of the most ravishing! The shining hair -and the eyes of the most disturbing!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> Lolotte is in direct descent from -Mimi Pinson, half angel and half puss.</p> - -<p>Soldiers of all the Allied armies gather about her crescent-shaped bar -after half-past nine of an evening. The floor is sawdusted. The counter -is sloppy with overflows of coffee. Lips and nose receive from the air -that bitter tang derived only from the smoke of Maryland tobacco. The -varied uniforms of the patrons make a harmony of debonair gaiety with -the many-coloured bottles of cordials and sirops.</p> - -<p>"<i>Pardon, m'sieu!</i>" cries the poilu, as he accidentally jogs the arm by -which Sergeant Michael Cassidy is raising his coffee-cup.</p> - -<p>"<i>Oh, sarner fairy hang, mossoo! Moselle, donnay mwaw urn Granny Dean.</i>"</p> - -<p>"<i>M'sieu parle français, alors?</i>"</p> - -<p>"<i>Ah, oui. Jer parle urn purr.</i>"</p> - -<p>And another supporting column is added to the structure of the Entente.</p> - -<p>Over in the corner stands a little fat fellow. That corner belongs to -him by right of three years' occupation. He is 'Ockington from a nearby -printing works. Ask 'Ockington what he thinks about these 'ere -coffee-bars.</p> - -<p>"Ah," he'll say, "I like these Frenchified <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>caffies. Grand idea, if you -ask me. Makes yeh feel as though you was abroad-like. Gives yeh that -Lazy-Fare feelin'. I bin abroad, y'know. Dessay you 'ave, too, shouldn't -wonder. I don't blame yeh. See what yeh can while yeh can, 'ats what I -say. My young Sid went over to Paris one Bang Koliday, 'fore the war, -an' he come back as different again. Yerce, I'm all fer the French -caffies, I am. Nicely got up, I think. Good meoggerny counter; and this -floor and the walls—all done in that what-d'ye call it—mosey-ac. What -I alwis say is this: the French is a gay nation. Gay. And you feel it -'ere, doncher? Sort of cheers you up, like, if yer know what I mean, to -drop in 'ere for a minute or two.... Year or two ago, now, after a rush -job at the Works, I used to stop at a coffee-stall on me way 'ome late -at night, an' 'ave a penny cup o' swipes—yerce, an' glad <i>of</i> it. But -the difference in the stuff they give yer 'ere—don't it drink lovely -and smooth?"</p> - -<p>Then his monologue is interrupted by the electric piano, which some one -has fed with pennies; and your ear is charmed or tortured by the latest -revue music or old favourites from Paris and Naples—"Marguerite," "Sous -les ponts de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> Paris," "Monaco," the Tripoli March. If you appear -interested in the piano, whose voice Lolotte loves, she will offer to -toss you for the next penn'orth. Never does she lose. She wins by the -simple trick of snatching your penny away the moment you lift your hand -from it, and gurgling delightedly at your discomfiture.</p> - -<p>No wonder the coffee-bar has become such a feature of London life in -this time of war. Leaning, in Lolotte's bar, is a real and not a forced -pleasure. In the old days one could lean and absorb the drink of one's -choice; but amid what company and with what service! Who could possibly -desire to exchange fatigued inanities with the vacuous vulgarities who -administer the ordinary London bar; who seem, like telephone girls, to -have taken lessons from some insane teacher of elocution, with their -"Nooh riarly?" expressive of incredulity; and their "Is yewers a -Scartch, Mr. Iggulden?" But in Lolotte's bar, talk is bright, sometimes -distinctly clever, and one lingers over one's coffee, chaffering with -her for—well, ask 'Ockington how long he stays.</p> - -<p>But Lolotte is not always gay. Sometimes she will tell you stories of -Paris. There is a terrible story which she tells when she is feeling -triste.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> It is the story of a girl friend of hers with whom she worked -in Paris. The girl grew ill; lost her work; and earned her living by the -only possible means, until she grew too ill for that. One night Lolotte -met her wearily walking the streets. She had been without food for two -days, and had that morning been turned from her lodging. Suddenly, as -they passed a florist's, she darted through its doors and inquired the -price of some opulent blooms at the further end of the shop. The -shop-man turned towards them, and, as he turned, she dexterously -snatched a bunch of white violets from a vase on the counter. The price -of the orchids, she decided, was too high, and she came out.</p> - -<p>Lolotte, who had seen the trick from the doorway, inquired the reason -for the theft. And the answer was:</p> - -<p>"<i>Eh, bien; il faut avoir quelquechose quand on va rencontrer le bon -Dieu.</i>"</p> - -<p>Two days later her body, with a bunch of white violets fastened at the -neck, was recovered from the Seine.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - -<h2>OUT OF TOWN</h2> - -<p>It was an empty day, in the early part of the year, and I was its very -idle singer; so idle that I was beginning to wonder whether there would -be any Sunday dinner for me. I took stock of my possessions in coin, and -found one-and-ten-pence-halfpenny. Was I downhearted? Yes. But I didn't -worry, for when things are at their worst, my habit is always to fold my -hands and trust. Something always happens.</p> - -<p>Something happened on this occasion: a double knock at the door and a -telegram. It was from the most enlightened London publisher, whose firm -has done so much in the way of encouraging young writers, and it asked -me to call at once. I did so.</p> - -<p>"Like to go to Monte Carlo?" he asked.</p> - -<p>When I had recovered from the swoon, I begged him to ask another.</p> - -<p>"Here's an American millionaire," he said,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> "writing from Monte Carlo. -He wants to write a book, and he wants some assistance. How would it -suit you?"</p> - -<p>I said it would suit me like a Savile Row outfit of clothes.</p> - -<p>"When can you go?"</p> - -<p>"Any old time."</p> - -<p>"Right. You'd better wire him, and tell him I told you to. Don't let -yourself go cheap. Good-bye."</p> - -<p>I didn't fall on his neck in an outburst of gratitude: he wouldn't have -liked it. But I yodelled and chirruped all the way to the nearest -post-office, having touched a friend for ten shillings on the strength -of the stunt. All that day and the next, telegrams passed between Monte -Carlo and Balham. I asked a noble salary and expenses, and a wire came -back: "Start at once." I replied: "No money." Ten pounds were delivered -at my doorstep next morning, with the repeated message "Start at once."</p> - -<p>But starting at once, in war-time, was not so easily done. There was a -passport to get. That meant three days' lounging in a little wooden hut -in the yard of the Foreign Office. Having got the passport, I spent four -hours in a queue<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> outside the French Consulate before I could get it -<i>visé</i>. Six days after the first telegram, I stood shivering on Victoria -Station at seven o'clock of a cadaverous January morning. Having been -well and truly searched in another little hut, and having kissed the -book, and sworn full-flavoured oaths about correspondence, and thought -of a number, and added four to it, I was allowed to board the train.</p> - -<p>Half the British Army was on that train, and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome and -myself were the only civilians in our carriage. You will rightly guess -that it was a lively journey. I had always wondered, in peace-time, why -the jew's-harp was invented. I understand now. In the histories of this -war, the jew's-harp will take as romantic a place as the pipes of -Lucknow or the drums of Oude in the histories of other wars.</p> - -<p>At Folkestone there were more searchings, more stamping of passports, -more papers and "permissions" to bulk one's pocket and perplex one's -mind. On the boat, standing-room only, and when a gestic stewardess -sought seats for a fond mother and five little ones in the ladies' -saloon, she found all places occupied by khaki figures stretched at full -length.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>"<i>Seulement les dames!</i>" she cried, pointing to a notice over the door.</p> - -<p>"<i>Aha, madame!</i>" said a stalwart Australian, "<i>mais c'est la guerre!</i>" -In other words "Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell to you!"</p> - -<p>Yes, it was war; and it was tactfully suggested to us by the crew, for, -when we were clear of Folkestone harbour, all boats were slung out, and -lifeboats were placed in tragic heaps on either side. It was a cold, -angry sea, and stewards and stewardesses became aggressively prophetic -about the fine crossing that we were to have. Germany had a few days -before declared her first blockade of the English coast, and every speck -on the sea became dreadfully portentous. At mid-Channel a destroyer -stood in to us and ran up a stream of signals.</p> - -<p>"This is it," chortled a Cockney, between violent trips to the side; -"this is it! Now we're for it!"</p> - -<p>Next moment I got a push in the back, and I thought it had come. But it -was the elbow of one of the crew who had rushed forward, and was sorting -bits of bunting from an impossibly tangled heap at my side. In about two -seconds, he found what he wanted and hauled at a rope. Up<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> went what -looked like a patchwork counterpane, until the breeze caught it, when it -became a string of shapes and colours, straining deliriously against its -fastenings. Then down it came; then up again; then down; then up; then -down; and that was the end of that conversation. I don't know what it -signified, but half an hour later we were in Boulogne harbour.</p> - -<p>More comic business with papers; then to the train. Yes, it was war. The -bridge over the Oise had not then been repaired; so we crawled to Paris -by an absurdly crab-like route. We left Boulogne just after twelve. We -reached Paris at ten o'clock at night. There was no food on the train, -and from six o'clock that morning, when I had had a swift cup of tea, -until nearly midnight I got nothing in the way of refreshment. But who -cared? I was going South to meet an American millionaire, and I had -money in my pocket.</p> - -<p>I arrived at Paris too late to connect with that night's P.L.M. express, -so I had twenty-four hours to kill. I strolled idly about, and found -Paris very little changed. There was an air about the people of -irritation, of questioning, of petulant suffering; they had a manner -expressive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> of "<i>A quoi bon?</i>" Somebody in high quarters had brought -this thing upon them. Somebody in high quarters might rescue them from -its evils—or might not. They moved like stricken animals, their -habitual melancholy, which is often unnoticed because it is overlaid -with vivacity, now permanently in possession.</p> - -<p>I caught the night express to Monte Carlo. Our carriage contained eight -sombre people, and the corridors were strewn with sleep-stupid soldiers. -I was one sardine among many, and, with a twenty-seven-hour journey -before me in this overheated, hermetically sealed sardine-tin, I began -to think what a fool I had been to make this absurd journey to a place -that was strange to me; to meet a millionaire about whom I knew nothing, -and who might have changed his mind, millionaire-fashion, and left Monte -Carlo by the time I got there; and to undertake a job which I might -find, on examination, was beyond me.</p> - -<p>Then, with a French girl's head on one shoulder, and my other twisted at -an impossible angle into the window-frame, I went to sleep and awoke at -Lyons, with a horrible headache and an unbearable mouth, the result of -the boiling and over-spiced soup I had swallowed the night before. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> -think we all hated each other. It was impossible to wash or arrange -oneself decently, and again there was no food on the train. But, as only -the Latin mind can, we made the best of it and pretended that it was -funny. Girls and men, complete strangers, drooped in abandonment against -one another, or reclined on unknown necks. A young married couple -behaved in a way that at other times would have meant a divorce. The -husband rested his sagging head on the bosom of a stout matron, and a -poilu stretched a rug across his knees and made a comfortable pillow for -the little wife. <i>N'importe. C'était la guerre.</i></p> - -<p>On the platform at Lyons were groups of French Red Cross girls with -wagons of coffee. This coffee was for the soldiers, but they handed it -round impartially to civilians and soldiers alike, and those who cared -could drop a few sous into the collecting basin. That coffee was the -sweetest draught I had ever swallowed.</p> - -<p>At Marseilles it was bright morning, and I was lucky enough to get a -pannier, at a trifling cost of seven francs. These panniers are no meal -for a hungry man. They contain a bone of chicken, a scrap of ham, a -corner of Gruyère, a stick of bread (that surely was made by the firm<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> -that put the sand in sandwich), a half-bottle of sour white wine, a -bottle of the eternal Vichy, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all.</p> - -<p>I had just finished it when we rolled into Toulon, and there I got my -first glimpse of the true, warm South. I suffered a curious sense of -"coming home." I had not known it, but all my childish dreams must have -had for their background this coloured South, for, the moment it spread -itself before me, bits of Verdi melodies ran through my heart and brain -and I danced a double-shuffle. Since I was old enough to handle a -fiddle, all music has interpreted itself to me in a visualization of -blue seas, white coasts, green palms with lemon and nectarine dancing -through them, and noisy, sun-bright towns, and swart faces and -languorous and joyfully dirty people. The keenest sense of being at home -came later, when, at Monte Carlo, I met Giacomo Puccini, the hero of my -young days, whose music had illumined so many dark moments of my City -slavery; who is in the direct line of succession from Verdi.</p> - -<p>This first visit to Monte Carlo showed me Monte Carlo as she never was -before. Half the hotels were closed or turned into hospitals, since<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> all -the German hotel-staffs had been packed home. In other times it would -have been "the season," but now there was everywhere a sense of -emptiness. Wounded British and French officers paraded the Terrace; -disabled blacks from Algeria were on every hotel verandah or wandering -aimlessly about the hilly streets with a sad air of being lost. The -Casino was open, but it closed at eleven, and all the cafés closed with -it; the former happy night-life had been nipped off short. At midnight -the place was dead.</p> - -<p>I was accommodated at an Italian <i>pension</i> in Beausoleil, which, in -peace-times, was patronized by music-hall artists working the Beausoleil -casino. The Casino had been turned into a barracks, but one or two -Italian danseuses from the cabarets of San Remo were taking a brief -rest, so that the days were less tiresome than they might have been. My -millionaire was a charming man, who used my services but a few hours -each day. Then I could dally with the sunshine and the Chianti and the -breaking seas about the Condamine.</p> - -<p>When I next want a cheap holiday I shan't go to Brighton, or Eastbourne, -or Cromer; I shall go to Monte Carlo. The dear Italian Mama who kept the -<i>pension</i> treated me like a prince for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> thirty-five francs a week. I had -a large bedroom, with four windows looking to the Alpes Maritimes, and a -huge, downy French bed; I had coffee and roll in the morning; a -four-course lunch of Italian dishes, with a bottle of Chianti or Barolo; -and a five-course dinner, again with a bottle. Those meals were the most -delightful I have ever taken. The windows of the dining-room were flung -wide to the Mediterranean, and between courses we could bask on the -verandah while one of the girls would touch the guitar, the mandolin, or -the accordion (sometimes we had all three going at once), in -effervescent Neapolitan melody. My contribution to these meal-time -entertainments was an English song of which they never tired: "The Man -that Broke the Bank at Monte Carr-rr-lo!" Sometimes it was demanded five -or six times in an evening. Immediately I arrived I was properly -embraced and kissed by Mama and the three girls, and these rapturous -kisses seemed to be part of the etiquette of the establishment, for they -happened every morning and after all meals. M'selle Lola was allotted to -me; a blonde Italian, afire with mischief and loving-kindness and little -delicacies of affection.</p> - -<p>On the third day of my visit I met a kindred<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> soul, the wireless -operator from the Prince of Monaco's yacht, <i>L'Hirondelle</i>, which was -lying in the harbour on loan to the French Government. He was a bright -youth; had been many times on long cruises with the yacht, and spoke -English which was as good as my French was bad. We had some delightful -"noces" together, and it was in his company that I met and had talks -with Caruso at the Café de Paris. An opera season was running at the -Casino, and on opera nights the café remained open until a little past -midnight. After the evening's work Caruso would drop into the café and -talk with everybody. His naïve gratification when I told him how I had -saved money for weeks, and had waited hours at the gallery door of -Covent Garden to hear him sing, was delightful to witness. Prince George -of Serbia was also there, recuperating; but though the Terrace at -mid-day was crowded and pleasantly bright, I was told that against the -Terrace in the old seasons it was miserably dull.</p> - -<p>On ordinary nights, when we felt still fresh at eleven o'clock, we would -take a car to Mentone, cross the frontier into Italy (which was not then -at war), and spend a few cheery hours at Bordighera or San Remo, which -were nightless. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> back to Monte Carlo at about five, to bed, and up -again at nine, with no feeling of fatigue. It was curious to note how, -under that sharp sunshine and keen night sky, all moral values were -changed, or wholly obliterated. The first breath of the youthful company -at the <i>pension</i> blew all London cobwebs away. It was all so abandoned, -yet so sweet and wholesome; and, by contrast, the English seaside -resort, where the girls play at "letting themselves go," was a crude and -shameful farce. Whatever happened at Monaco seemed to be right; nothing -was wrong except frigidity and unkindness.</p> - -<p>My dear Italian Mama said to me one evening at dinner, when I had (in -the English sense) disgraced myself by a remark straight from the -heart:—</p> - -<p>"<i>M'sieu Thomas, on m'a dit que les anglais ont froid. C'est pas vrai!</i>"</p> - -<p>No, dear Mamina; but it was true before I stayed at the Pension Poggio -at Beausoleil.</p> - -<p>My work with the millionaire spread itself over two months; then, with a -fat wad, I was free to return. It was not until I went to the Consulate -to get my passport <i>visé</i> that I discovered how many war-time laws of -France I had broken.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> I had not registered myself on arrival; I had not -reported myself periodically; and I had not obtained a <i>permis de -séjour</i>. The Consul informed me cheerfully that heaps of trouble would -be waiting for me when I went to the Mairie to get my <i>laissez-passer</i>, -without which I could not buy a railway ticket. However, after being -stood in a corner for two hours until all other travellers had received -attention, a <i>laissez-passer</i> was thrown at me on my undertaking to -leave Monte Carlo that night. A gendarme accompanied me to the station -to see that I did so.</p> - -<p>At Paris, a few hours spent with the police, the military, -Hôtel-de-Ville, and the British Consulate resulted in permission to kick -my heels there for a day or so.</p> - -<p>A few mornings later arrived the millionaire's precious MS., which I had -left behind so that he might revise it, with a message to hustle. I -hustled. I reached London the same night. Next morning I negotiated with -a publisher. In two days it was in the printer's hands and in a -fortnight it was in the bookshops; and I was again out of a job.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p> - -<h2>IN SEARCH OF A SHOW</h2> - -<p>I have been looking for a needle in a haystack, and I have not found it. -I have been looking for an hour's true entertainment in London's -theatres and music-halls during this spring season of 1918.</p> - -<p>The tag of Mr. Gus Elen's old song, "'E dunno where 'e are," very aptly -describes the condition of the regular theatre-goer to-day. What would -the old laddies of the Bodega-cheese days have thought, had any -prophesied that at one swift step the Oxford and the Pavilion would -simultaneously move into the ranks of the "legitimate;" that His -Majesty's Theatre would be running a pantomime; that smoking would be -allowed in the Lyceum, the Comedy, the Vaudeville, and the Garrick? Many -people have lost their individuality by being merged into one or other -war-movement since 1914; many streets have entirely lost those -distinctive features which enable us to recognize them at one glance or -by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> sound or smell; but nowhere has the war more completely smashed -personality than in theatre-land.</p> - -<p>In the old days (one must use that pathetic phrase in speaking of -ante-1914), the visitor to London knew precisely the type of -entertainment and the type of audience he would find at any given -establishment. To-day, one figures his bewilderment—verily, 'e dunno -where 'e are. Formerly, he could be sure that at the Garrick he would -find Mr. Bourchier playing a Bourchieresque part. At His Majesty's he -would find just what he wanted—or would want what he found—for going -to His Majesty's was not a matter of dropping in: it was a pious -function. At the Alhambra or the Empire he would be sure of finding -excellent ballet at about ten o'clock, when he could sip his drink, -stroll round the promenade, and leave when he felt like it. At the time -I write he finds Mr. Bourchier playing low comedy at a transformed -music-hall, and at the Alhambra or the Empire he finds a suburban crowd, -neatly seated in rows—father, mother and flappers—watching a quite -innocuous entertainment.</p> - -<p>Managers were long wont to classify in their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> minds the "Garrick" -audience, the "Daly" audience, the "Adelphi" audience, the "Haymarket" -audience; and plays would be refused by a manager on the ground that -"our audience wouldn't stand it; try the Lyric." To-day they are all in -the melting-pot, and the poor habitué of the So-and-so Theatre has to -take what is given him, and be mighty thankful for it.</p> - -<p>At one time I loved a show, however cheap its kind; but in these days, -after visiting a war-time show and suffering the feeling of assisting at -some forbidden rite, I always wish I had wasted the evening in some -other manner. Since 1914 the theatres have not produced one show that -any sober man would pay two pence to see. The stuff that has been -produced has paid its way because the bulk of the public is drunk—with -war or overwork. The story of the stage since 1914 may be given in one -word—"Punk." Knowing that we are all too preoccupied with solemn -affairs to examine very closely our money's-worth, and knowing that the -boys on leave are not likely to be too hypercritical, the theatrical -money-lords—with one noble exception—have taken advantage of the -situation to fub us off with any old store-room rubbish. We have dozens -of genuine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> music-hall comedians on the stage to-day, but they are all -slacking. Some of them get absorbed by West End shows, and at once, when -they appear on the gigantic American stages of some of our modern -theatres, surrounded by crowds of elephantine women, they lose whatever -character and spontaneity they had. Others give the bulk of their time -and brains to earning cheap notoriety by raising funds for charities or -cultivating allotments—both commendable activities, but not compatible -with the serious business of cheering the public. Gradually, the -individual is being frozen out, and the stages are loaded with crowds of -horsey, child-aping women, called by courtesy a beauty chorus; the show -being called, also by courtesy, a revue. These shows resemble a revue as -much as the short stories of popular magazines resemble a <i>conte</i>. They -dazzle the eye and blast the ear, and, instead of entertaining, exhaust.</p> - -<p>The artists have, allowing for human nature, done their best under -trying circumstances; but playing to an audience of overseas khaki and -tired working-people, who applaud their most maladroit japes, has had -the effect of wearing them down. They no longer work. They take the -easiest way, knowing that any remark about the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> Kaiser, Old Bill, -meat-cards, or the Better 'Ole is sure of a laugh.</p> - -<p>One solitary example of money's-worth in war-time I found—but that is -outside the lists of vaudeville or drama. I mean Sir Thomas Beecham's -operative enterprise. Beginning, in 1915, to develop his previous -tentative experiments—fighting against indifference, prejudice, often -against active opposition—he went steadily on; and it is he whom our -men must thank if, on returning, they find in England something besides -factories and barracks. There is no man who, amid this welter of blood -and hate, has performed work of higher national importance. While every -effort was made to stifle or stultify every movement that made towards -sanity and vision, he went doggedly forward, striving to save from the -wreckage some trifle of sweetness and loveliness for those who have ears -to hear. Had certain good people had their way, he, his ideals, his -singers, his orchestra and his band instruments would have been flung -into the general cesspool, to lie there and rot. But he won through; and -I think only that enemy of civilization, the screaming, flag-wagging -patriot, will disagree with a famous Major-General who, in full -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>war-paint, stood at my side in the theatre bar between the acts of -<i>Tristan</i>, and, turning upon a querulous civilian who had snorted -against Wagner, cried angrily:—</p> - -<p>"Nonsense, sir, nonsense. War is war. And music is music."</p> - -<p>After years of struggling, Beecham has made it possible for an English -singer to sing to English audiences under his English name, and has -proved what theatrical and music-hall managers never attempt to prove: -that England can produce her own native talent in music and drama, -without taking the fourth-rate and fifth-rate, as well as the -first-rate, material of America and the Continent. He has shown himself -at once a philanthropist and a patriot. In none of his productions do we -find signs of that cheap philosophy that "anything will do for -war-time." Before the arrival of his company, opera in London was a mere -social function which (except from the point of view of the galleryite) -had little to do with music. People went to Covent Garden not to listen -to music, but to be seen; just as they went to the Savoy or to the -Carlton to be seen, not to procure nourishment. The Beecham opera is -first and last a matter of music.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span></p><p>So, Sir Thomas, a few thousand of us take off our hats to you. I think -we should all like to send you every morning a little bunch of violets, -or something equally valueless, but symbolic of the fine things you have -given us, of the silver lining you have disclosed to us in these -overclouded days.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span></p> - -<h2>VODKA AND VAGABONDS</h2> - -<p>Last year London lost two of its quaintest characters—Robertson, of -Australia, that pathetic old man who haunted the Strand and carried in -his hat a clumsily scrawled card announcing that he was searching for -his errant daughter, and "Please Do Not Give Me Money"; and "Spring -Onions," the Thames Police Court poet.</p> - -<p>Now the race of London freaks seems ended. Craig, the poet of the Oval -Cricket ground; Spiv Bagster; the Chiswick miser; Onions and Robertson; -all are gone. Hunnable is confined; and G. N. Curzon isn't looking any -too well. Even that prolific poet, Rowbotham, self-styled "the modern -Homer," has been keeping quiet lately. It took a universal war, though, -to make him nod.</p> - -<p>I met "Spring" (privately, Mr. W. G. Waters) once or twice at Stepney. -He was a vagrant minstrel of the long line of Villon and Cyrano de -Bergerac. His anniversary odes were known to thousands of newspaper -readers. He was the self-appointed Laureate of the nation.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> He -celebrated not only himself, his struggles and successes, but the -pettier happenings of the day, such as the death of a king, the -accession of a king, or the marriage of some royal couple. You remember -his lines on the Coronation of Edward VII:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>The King, His Majesty, and may him Heaven bless,</div> -<div>He don't put no side on in his dress.</div> -<div>For, though he owns castles and palaces and houses,</div> -<div>He wears, just like you and me, coats and waistcoats and trousis.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The character of the genial Edward in four lines. Could it have been -better said?</p> - -<p>Not to know Spring argues yourself unknown. He might have stepped from -the covers of Dekker's <i>Gull's Hornbook</i>. He was a child of nature. I -can't bring myself to believe that he was born of woman. I believe the -fairies must have left him under the gooseberry—no, under the laurel -bush, for he wore the laurel, the myrtle, and the bay as one born to -them. He also, on occasion, wore the vine-leaf; and surely that is now -an honour as high as the laurel, since all good fellowship and -kindliness and conviviality have been sponged from our social life. We -have been made dull and hang-dog by law. I wonder what Spring would have -said about that law in his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> unregenerate days—Spring, who was "in" -thirty-nine times for "D. and D." He would have written a poem about it, -I know: a poem that would have rung through the land, and have brought -to camp the numerous army of Boltists, Thresholdists, and Snortists.</p> - -<p>Oh, Spring has been one of the boys in his time, believe me. But in his -latter years he was dull and virtuous; he kept the pledge of teetotalism -for sixteen years, teetotalism meaning abstention from alcoholic -liquors. This doesn't mean that he wasn't like all other teetotalers, -sometimes drunk. The pious sages who make our by-laws seem to forget -that it is as easy to get drunk on tea and coffee as on beer; the only -difference being that beer makes you pleasantly drunk, and tea and -coffee make you miserably drunk.</p> - -<p>If you knew Spring in the old days, you wouldn't have known him towards -the end—and I don't suppose he would have known you. For in his old age -he was a Person. He was odd messenger at Thames Police Court. In -November, 1898 Spring, who was then the local reprobate, took to heart -the kindly admonitions of Sir John Dickinson, then magistrate at Thames, -and signed the pledge of total abstinence. Ever <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>afterwards, on the -anniversary of that great day. Spring would hand to the magistrate a -poem in celebration of the fact that he had "kept off it" for another -year.</p> - -<p>I visited Spring just before his death in his lodging—lodging stranger -than that of any Montmartre poet.</p> - -<p>The Thames Police Court is in Arbour Square, Stepney, and Spring lived -near his work. Through many mean streets I tracked his dwelling, and at -last I found it. I climbed flights of broken stairs in a high forbidding -house. I stumbled over steps and unexpected turns, and at last I stood -with a puffy, red-faced, grey-whiskers, stocky old fellow, in a -candle-lit garret whose one window looked over a furtively noisy court.</p> - -<p>It was probably his family name of Waters that drove him to drink in his -youth, since when, he has been known as the man who put the tea in -"teetotal." In his room I noticed a bed of nondescript colour and -make-up, a rickety chest of drawers (in which he kept his treasures), -two doubtful chairs, a table, a basin, and bits of food strewn -impartially everywhere. A thick, limp smell hung over all, and the place -seemed set a-jigging by the flickering light of the candle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> There I -heard his tale. He sat on the safe chair while I flirted with the other.</p> - -<p>It was on the fortieth occasion that he yielded to Sir John Dickinson's -remonstrances and signed the pledge, and earned the respect of all -connected with that court where he had made so many appearances. All -through that Christmas and New Year he had, of course, a thin time; it -was suffocating to have to refuse the invitation: "Come on, -Spring—let's drink your health!" But what did Spring do? Did he yield? -Never. When he found he was thirsty, he sat down and wrote a poem, and -by the time he had found a rhyme for Burton, the thirst had passed. -Then, too, everybody took an interest in him and gave him work and -clothes, and so on. Oh, yes, it's a profitable job being a reformed -vagabond in Stepney.</p> - -<p>He was employed on odd messages and errands for the staff at Thames -Police Court, and visited the police-stations round about to do similar -errands, such as buying breakfast for the unfortunates who have been -locked up all night and are about to face the magistrate. Whatever an -overnight prisoner wants in the way of food he may have (intoxicants -barred), if he cares to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> pay for it, and Spring was the agile fellow who -fetched it for him; and many stray coppers (money, not policemen) came -his way.</p> - -<p>All these things he told me as I sat in his mephitic lodging. Spring, -like his brother Villon, was a man of all trades; no job was too "odd" -for him to take on. Holding horses, taking messages from court to -station, writing odes on this and that, opening and shutting doors, and -dashing about in his eightieth year just like a newsboy—Spring was -certainly a credit to Stepney. On my mentioning that I myself made songs -at times, he dashed off the following impromptu, as I was falling down -his crazy stairs at midnight:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Oh, how happy we all should be,</div> -<div>If none of us ever drank anything stronger than tea.</div> -<div>For how can a man hope to write a beautiful song</div> -<div>When he is hanging round the public-houses all day long?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>"Spring Onions" apart, Stepney is a home for all manner of queer -characters, full of fire and salt; from Peter the Painter, of immortal -memory, to those odd-job men who live well by being Jacks of all trades, -and masters of them, too.</p> - -<p>There are my good friends, Johnny, the scavenger, Mr. 'Opkinson, the -cat's-meat man, 'Erb, the boney, Fat Fred, who keeps the baked-potato<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> -can, and that lovable personality "My Uncle Toby," gate-man at one of -the docks.</p> - -<p>There's 'Orace, too, the minder. Ever met him? Ever employed him? -Probably not, but if you live near any poor market-place, and ever have -occasion for his services, I cordially recommend him.</p> - -<p>'Orace is the best minder east of the Pump. What does he mind? Your -business, not his. Haven't you ever seen him at it in the more homely -quarters? At a penny a time, it's good hunting; and 'Orace is the only -man I know who blesses certain recent legislation.</p> - -<p>His profession sprang from the Children Act, which debarred parents from -taking children into public-houses. Now, there are thousands of -respectable couples who like to have a quiet—or even a noisy—drink on -market-night; and the effect of the Act was that they had to go in -singly, one taking a drink while the other stood outside and held the -baby.</p> - -<p>There was 'Orace's opportunity, and he took it. Why not let father and -mother take their drink together, while 'Orace sang lullabies to his -Majesty?</p> - -<p>Admirable idea. It caught on, for 'Orace has a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> way with babies. He can -talk baby guff by the hour, and in the whole of his professional career -he has never had to mind a baby that did not "take" to him on sight.</p> - -<p>The fee is frequently more than a penny. If the old dad wants to stay -for a bit, he will stand 'Orace a drink (under the rose) and a pipe of -'baccy. Sundays and holidays are his best days. He selects his -public-house, on the main road always, and works it all day. Often he -has five or six kiddies at a time to protect; and he gave me a private -tip towards success as a "minder": always carry a number of bright -things in your pockets—nails, pearl buttons, bits of coloured chalk, -or, best of all, a piece of putty.</p> - -<p>Outside his regular pitch, the public-house owns a horse-trough, but as -no horses now draw up, the trough is dry, and in this he places his -half-dozen or so protégés, out of danger and as happy as you please.</p> - -<p>Then there's Artie, the copper's nark. What shall be said of Artie? -Shall I compare him to a summer's day? No, I think not; rather to a -cobwebbed Stepney twilight. I don't commend Artie. Indeed, I have as -little regard for him as I have for those poisonous weeds that float on -the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> Thames near Greenwich at flood. He is a thoroughly disagreeable -person, with none of the acid qualities of the really bad man or the -firelight glow of commonplace sinners like ourselves. He is incapable of -following any other calling. He has been, from boyhood, mixed up with -criminal gangs, but he has not the backbone necessary for following them -on their enterprises. Always he has wanted to feel safe; so he cringes -at the feet of officialism. He is hated by all—by the boys whose games -he springs and by the unscrupulous police who employ him. His rewards -are small: a few pence now and then, an occasional drink, and a tolerant -eye towards his own little misbehavings.</p> - -<p>Often the police are puzzled as to how Artie gets his information. If -you were to ask him, he would become Orientally impassive.</p> - -<p>"Ah, you'd like to know, wouldn't yer?"</p> - -<p>But the truth is that he does not himself know. In a poor -district—Walworth, Hoxton, or Notting Dale—everybody talks; and it is -in these districts that Artie works. He is useless in big criminal -affairs; he can only gather and report information on the petty doings -of his associates. The moment any small burglary is planned, two or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> -three people know about it, for the small burglar is always maladroit -and ill-instructed in his methods, and is bound to confide in some one. -Artie is always about like a predatory bird to snatch up crumbs of other -people's business.</p> - -<p>Are you married, and were you married at a Registry Office? If so, it's -certain that you've met my dear old friend. Stepney Syd, the -Congratulator, one of our most earnest war-workers; as "unwearied" as -Lady Dardy Dinkum.</p> - -<p>Congratulations, spoken at the right moment, in the right way, to the -right people, are a paying proposition. The war has made no difference -in the value of those mellifluous syllables, unless it be in an upward -direction. It's a soft job, too. Syd never works after three in the -afternoon. He cannot, because his work is the concluding touch to the -marriage service. It consists in hanging about registry-offices—that in -Covent Garden is very popular with young people in a hurry—and waiting -until a cab arrives with prospective bride and bridegroom. When they -leave, Syd is there to open the door for them, and respectfully offer -felicitations; and so fatuous and helpless is man when he has taken a -woman for life that he dare not ignore this happy omen.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>Thus, Syd comes home every time on a good thing, and, by careful -watching of the weekly papers in the Free Library, and putting two and -two together, he contrives, like some of our politicians, to anticipate -events, and to be where the good things are.</p> - -<p>Strolling round Montagu Street the other night, I met, in one of the -little Russian cafés, a man who pitched me a tale of woe—a lean, -ferrety little man, with ferrety eyes and fingers that urged me to -button my overcoat and secure all pockets.</p> - -<p>But I was shocked to discover that he was an honest man. Diamonds and -honesty seldom walk hand-in-hand, and precious stones and virtue do not -yet publicly kiss each other; and he talked so much of diamonds that my -first apprehensions were perhaps justified. I learnt, however, that his -was a sad case. He was a diamond-cutter by trade, and in those war days -one might as usefully have diamonds in Amsterdam (as Maudi Darrell's -song went) as have them in London.</p> - -<p>I had not before met a man who so casually juggled with the symbols of -revue-girlhood, so I bought him some more vodka and tea-and-lemon, and -led him on to talk. Stones to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> value of £20,000 passed through his -hands every day, but none of them stuck. This fact greatly refreshed my -dimming faith in human nature, until he qualified it by adding that it -wasn't worth a cutter's while to steal. Every worker in the trade is -known to every branch, and he would have no second chance.</p> - -<p>Apprenticeship to the trade of diamond-cutting costs £200: and, once out -of his indentures, the apprentice must join the Union, for it would be -useless for him, however proficient in his business, to attempt to -obtain a post without his Union ticket.</p> - -<p>The diamond-mechanic earns anything from £3 to £8 per week. The work -calls for a very considerable knowledge of the characters of stones, for -very deft fingers, and for exceptionally shrewd judgment; since every -diamond or brilliant, however minute, has sixty-four facets, each of -which has to be made and polished on a lathe.</p> - -<p>The stones are handed out in the workshop practically haphazard, and in -the event of the loss of a stone, no disturbance is caused. The staff -simply look for it; the floor of the shop is swept up with a fine broom, -and the dust sifted<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> until it is found. The explanation of this laxity -is the International Diamond Cutters' Union.</p> - -<p>In the process of diamond-cutting, of course, the stone loses about 60 -per cent. of its weight; and the cutter told me that the filings that -come from the stone, mixed with the oil of the lathe, make the finest -lubricant for a razor-strop. The making of his smooth cheeks was the -perfect razor sharpened with diamond filings!</p> - -<p>Before we parted, he showed me casually a green diamond. This is the -most rare form of stone, and there are only six known examples in the -world. No, he didn't steal it. It had just been handed to him for -setting, and he was carrying it in his waistcoat-pocket in the careless -manner of all stone-dealers.</p> - -<p>After he and a sure thousand pounds had vanished into the night, I sat -for awhile in the café listening to the chatter of the cigarette-girls -of the quarter.</p> - -<p>It was all of war. Of Stefan, who had been repatriated; of Abramovitch, -who had evaded service by bolting to Ireland with a false green form for -which he had paid £100; of Sergius, who had been hiding in a cellar.</p> - -<p>When one thinks of cigarette-girls one thinks at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> once of Marion -Crawford's <i>Cigarette-maker's Romance</i> and of Martin Harvey's -super-sentimental performance in that play, so dear to the Streatham -flapper. But Sonia Karavitch, though soaked in the qualities of her -race—dark beauty, luxurious curls, brooding temper, and spiritual -melancholy—would, I fear, repel those who only know her under the -extravagantly refining rays of the limelight. But those who love -humanity in the raw will love her.</p> - -<p>Sonia Karavitch is seventeen. She wears a black frock, with many sprigs -of red ribbon at her neck and in her raven hair. Her fingers are stained -brown with tobacco; but, though she has heavy eyes and lounges -languorously, like a drowsy cat in the sunshine, she works harder than -most other factory-girls.</p> - -<p>From six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night she is at -her table, rolling by the thousand those hand-made cigarettes which -command big prices in Piccadilly. When she speaks she has a lazy voice -with a curious lisp, and it is full of sadness.</p> - -<p>Yet she is not sad. She has a pleasant little home in one of the big -tenements, where she lives with her mother and little brother, and, in -her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> own demonstrative way, is happy. The harder she works, the more -money there is for luxuries for the little brother. Often of an evening -her friends come home with her, and drink tea-and-lemon with her, and -make music.</p> - -<p>Sonia Karavitch is very shy, and never mixes with the folk who are not -of her own colony. She was born in Stepney of Russian parents, and she -never goes out of Stepney. And why should she? For in the half-dozen -streets where she lives her daily life she can speak the language of her -parents, can buy clothes such as her mother wore in Odessa, and can find -all those little touches that mean home to the homeless or the exiled.</p> - -<p>Every morning she goes straight to the factory; at noon she goes home to -dinner; and in the evening she goes straight home again. Sometimes on -Saturday afternoons—which is her Sunday, for Sonia is of Jewish -faith—she takes a walk in Whitechapel High Street, because, you see, -there is much life in Whitechapel High Street; there are her -compatriots, and there are street-organs, and violets are a penny a -bunch.</p> - -<p>When she has had a good week she sometimes takes her mother and brother -for kvass to one of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> the many Russian restaurants in Osborn Street and -Little Montagu Street.</p> - -<p>Sometimes you see Sonia Karavitch at a table, sipping her tea, and -listening to the talk, and you may wonder why that sad, far-away look in -her eyes. She is not in Stepney. Her soul has flown to her native -land—to the steppes, to the cold airs of Russia, whither a certain -Russian lad, who used to work by her side in the cigarette factory in -Osborn Street, was dispatched by a repatriation order.</p> - -<p>But then she remembers mother and little brother, and stops her -dreamings, and hurries on to work.</p> - -<p>Many wild folk have sat in these cafés and discoursed on the injustices -of civilization; and at one time private presses in the neighbourhood -gave forth inflammatory sheets bearing messages from international -warriors in the cause of freedom.</p> - -<p>If ever you are tired of the solemn round of existence, don't take a -holiday at the seaside, don't go to the war. Edit an anarchist -news-sheet, and your life will be full of quick perils and alarms.</p> - -<p>Another of my Stepney friends is Jane, the flower-girl, who tramps every -day from Stepney<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> to Covent Garden, and sells her stock from a pitch -near Leicester Square. Here's another ardent war-worker.</p> - -<p>Some worthy people may not think that the selling of violets comes -properly under the fine exclusive label of War Work; but these are the -neurotics whose only idea of doing their bit is that of twisting their -soiling fingers about anything that carries a message of grace; who fume -at a young man because he isn't in khaki, and, when he is in uniform, -kill him with a look because he isn't in hospital blue, and, when he is -in hospital, regard him askance because he isn't eager to go back.</p> - -<p>"Flowers!" they snort or wheeze. "Fiddling with flowers in war-time! It -ought to be stopped. Look at the waste of labour. Look at the press on -transport. Will the people never realize," etc.</p> - -<p>Yet, good troglodytes, because the world is at war, shall we then wipe -from the earth everything that links us, however lightly, to God—and -save Germany the trouble? Must everything be lead and steel? Old -Man—dost thou think, because thou art old, that glory and loveliness -have passed away with the corroding of thy bones?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> Nay, youth shall -still take or make its pleasure; fair girls shall still adorn their -limbs with silks, and flowers shall still be sweet to the nose.</p> - -<p>Old Man—on many occasions when I could get no food—not even -war-bread—the sight and smell of bunches of violets have furnished -sustenance for mind and body. So fill thy belly, if thou wilt, with the -waxy potato; put the Army cheese where the soldier puts the pudding; -shovel into thy mouth the frozen beef and offal that may renew thy -energies for further war-work; but, if there be any grace of God still -left in thee, if there be any virtue, any charity—leave, for those who -are shielding thy senescent body, the flower-girls about Piccadilly -Circus on a May morning.</p> - -<p>"Vi'lerts! Swee' Vi'lerts! Pennyer bunch!"</p> - -<p>Good morning, Jane! How sweet you and your violets look in the tangle of -traffic that laces and interlaces itself about Alfred Gilbert's Mercury.</p> - -<p>Morning by morning, fair or foggy, she stands by the fountain; and if -you give her more than a passing glance you will note that her tumbled -hair is of just the right shade of red, and in her eyes are the very -violets that she holds to your <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>indifferent nose, and under her lucent -skin beat the imperious pulses of youth.</p> - -<p>Jane is fourteen, and Jane is always smiling; not because she is -fourteen, but because it's such fun to be alive and to be selling -flowers. Indeed, she looks herself like a little posy, sweet and demure. -Times may be bad, but they are not reflected in Jane's appearance.</p> - -<p>Of education she has only what the Council School gave her in the odd -hours when she choose to attend; of religion she has none, but she has a -philosophy of her own, which, in a sentence, is To Get All The Fun You -Can Out of Things.</p> - -<p>That's why Jane's smile is a smile that certain people look for every -morning as they alight from their bus in the Circus. But you must not -imagine that Jane is good in the respectable sense of the word. Let -anyone annoy her, or try to "dish" her of one of her customers. Then, -when it comes to back-chat, Jane can more than hold her own in the -matter of language; and once I saw an artillery officer's face turn -livid during a discussion between her and a rival flower-girl.</p> - -<p>The war has hit Jane very badly. The young bloods who frequented her -stall in the old days, and bought the most expensive buttonholes every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> -morning, are now in khaki, and a thoughtless Army Order forbids an -officer to decorate his tunic with a spray of carnations or a moss-rose.</p> - -<p>There are only the old bounders remaining, and their custom depends so -much on such a number of things—the morning's news, the fact that they -are not ten years younger, the weather, and the state of their -digestions.</p> - -<p>Jane always reads the paper before she starts work, because, as she -says, then you know what to expect. She doesn't believe in meeting -trouble halfway, but she believes in being prepared for it. When there's -good news, stout old gentlemen will buy a bunch of violets for -themselves, and perhaps a cluster of blossoms for the typist. But when -the news is bad, nobody is in the mood for flowers. They want to band -themselves together and tell one another how awful it is; which, as Jane -says, is all wrong.</p> - -<p>"If they'd only buy a bunch of violets and stick it in their coats, -other people would feel better by looking at them, and they'd forget the -bad news in the jolly old smell in their buttonhole."</p> - -<p>Yes, Jane's fourteen years have given her much wisdom, and she is doing -as fine war-work as any admiral or field-marshal.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span></p><p>While in Stepney we mustn't forget good Mrs. Joplin. Mrs. Joplin lives -up a narrow court of menacing aspect, and in her window is a printed -card, bearing the cryptic legend—"Mangling Done Here"—which, to an -American friend of mine, suggested that atrocities of a German kind were -going on downstairs. But I calmed his fears by assuring him that Mrs. -Joplin's business card was a simple indication of her willingness to -receive from her neighbours bundles of newly-washed clothes, and put -them through a machine called a mangle, from which they were discharged -neatly pressed and folded. The remuneration for this service is usually -but a few coppers—beer-money, nothing more; so to procure the decencies -of existence Mrs. Joplin lets her basement rooms for—What's that? Yes, -I daresay you've had a few pewter half-crowns and florins passed on you -lately, but what's that to do with me—or Mrs. Joplin? Do you want me to -suggest that good Mrs. Joplin is a twister; a snide-merchant? Never let -it be said. Good Mrs. Joplin, unlike so many of her neighbours, has -never seen the inside of a police-court, much less a prison.</p> - -<p>Speaking of prisons, it was in Stepney that I was told how to carry -myself if ever I came within<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> the grip of the law on frequent occasions. -The English prison is not an establishment to which one turns with -anticipation of happiness; but there is one prison which is as good as a -home of rest for those suffering from the pain of the world. There is -but one condition of eligibility: you must be a habitual criminal.</p> - -<p>If you fulfilled that condition, you were dispatched to the Camp Hill -Detention Prison in the Isle of Wight.</p> - -<p>A most comfortable affair, this Camp Hill. It stands in pleasant -grounds, near Newport; and the walls are not the grey, scowling things -that enclose Holloway, or Reading, or Wandsworth, but walls of warm -brown stone, such as any good fellow of reputable fame might build about -his mansion. Close-shaven lawns and flower-beds delight the eye, and the -cells are roomy apartments with real windows. The guests do not dine in -solitude; they are marched together to the dining-hall, and there -nourished, not with skilly or stew, with its hunk of bread and a pewter -platter, but with meat and plum-duff, sometimes fish, greenstuffs, and -cocoa. This, of course, in peace-time; the menu has no doubt suffered -variations in these latter days. The tables are covered. After<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> the meal -the good fellows may sit for a few minutes and enjoy a pipe of tobacco, -even as the respectable citizen. A fair number of marks for good -behaviour carries with it the privilege of smoking after the night meal -as well, and one of the most severe punishments is the docking of this -smoking privilege.</p> - -<p>Also, a canteen is provided. Not only do they wallow in luxury; they are -paid for it. Twopence a day is given to each prisoner for exceptional -conduct, and one penny of this may be spent at the canteen. This is by -way of payment for work done—the work being of a much lighter kind than -that given to ordinary "second division" prisoners. In cases where -conduct fulfils every expectation of the authorities, the good lad is -rewarded, every six months, with a stripe. Six stripes entitle the -holder to a cash reward, half of which he may spend, the other half -being banked. The canteen sells sweets, mineral waters, cigarettes, -apples, oranges, nuts etc. Those inclined to the higher forms of -nourishment may use the library. There are current magazines, novels of -popular "healthy" writers (it would be unfair to give their names; they -might not appreciate the epithet), and—uplifting thought—the works of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> -Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and some French highbrows.</p> - -<p>On special occasions bioscope shows of an educative kind are given. Oh, -I do love my virtue, but I wish I were a habitual criminal. Why wasn't I -born in Stepney, and born a vagabond?</p> - -<p>Whether the prison is still running on the old lines I know not. Most -likely the British habitual convicts have been served with ejectment -notices to make room for German prisoners. I wouldn't wonder.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> - -<h2>THE KIDS' MAN</h2> - -<p>"I'll learn yeh, y' little wretch!"</p> - -<p>"Oowh! Don't—don't!"</p> - -<p>The lady, savagely wielding a decayed carpet-beater, bent over the -shrinking form of the child—a little storm of short skirts and black -hair. Her arm ached and her face steamed, but she continued to shower -blows wherever she could get them in, until suddenly the storm limply -subsided into a small figure which doubled up and fell.</p> - -<p>A step sounded in the doorway, and the lady looked up, frayed at the -edges and panting. A small, slight man, in semi-official dress, stood -just inside the room, which gave directly on to a byway of Homerton.</p> - -<p>"Na then, Feet—mind yer dirty boots on my carpet, cancher? What's -the——"</p> - -<p>"N.S.P.C.C.," replied Feet. He stooped over the child, lifted her, and -set her on a slippery sofa. "Had my eye on you for some time. Thought -there were something dicky with this child."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p><p>"'Ere, look 'ere—I mean, can't 'er muvver 'it 'er——"</p> - -<p>"Steady, please. Let me warn you——"</p> - -<p>The lady threatened with glances, but Kids' Man met them.</p> - -<p>She fumed. "Ow! You waltz in, do yeh? Well, strikes me yeh'll waltz out -quicker'n yeh came in. 'Ere—Arfer!" Her raucous voice scraped up the -narrow stairway leading from the room, and in answer came a misty voice, -suggesting revelries by night. The lady roared again: "Ar-ferr! Get up -an' come daown. 'Ere's a little swab insultin' yer wife! Kids' Man -insultin' yer wife!"</p> - -<p>Kids' Man made no move, but stood over the sofa with sober face, -ministering to the heavily breathing bundle. Overhead came bumps and a -prayer for delivery from women.</p> - -<p>Then on the lower step of the stairway appeared a symbol of Aurora in -velveteen breeches and a shirt of indeterminate colour. His braces hung -dolefully at the rear as he bleared on the situation. His furry head -moved from side to side. "Wodyeh want me t'do?"</p> - -<p>"Cosh 'im! Insultin' yer wife!"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span></p><p>He stared. Then his lip moved and he grinned. He hitched up his -trousers, belted them with braces, and expectorated on both hands with -gusto. "Git aout, else I'll split yer faice!"</p> - -<p>No answer. "Righto!" He descended from the stair, and, hands down, fists -closed, chin protruded, advanced on the bending Inspector with that -slow, insidious movement proper to street-fighters. "Won't git aout, -woncher? Grrr—yeh!"</p> - -<p>Kids' Man looked up and met him with a steady stare. But the stare -annoyed him, so he lifted up his fist and smote Kids' Man between the -eyes. Then things happened. He towered over the Inspector. "Want -another?" The Inspector lifted a short and apparently muscleless arm.</p> - -<p>Bk! Aurora reeled as the fist met his jaw, and was followed by a swift -one under the ear. For a moment astonishment seemed to hold him as he -bleared at the slight figure; then he seemed about to burst with wrath; -then he became a cold sportsman. The wife screamed for aid.</p> - -<p>"Aoutside—come on!" He shoved Kids' Man before him into the walk, -which, torpid a moment ago, now flashed with life and movement.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> Quickly -the auditorium was filled with a moist, unlovely crowd of sloppy rags -and towzled heads. While Kids' Man ministered to his nose, Arfer hitched -his trousers, fingered his shirt-sleeves, and talked in staccato to his -seconds, about a dozen in number. The crowd grunted and grinned. It -seemed evident that Kids' Man was about to get it in the neck. One or -two went to his side as he quietly turned back his sleeves, not for -purposes of encouragement, but merely in order to preserve the correct -niceties of the scrap.</p> - -<p>A light tap on the body from either party, and then more things -happened. "Go it, Arfer, flatten 'im! Cosh 'im! Rip 'im back, Arfer. -Give 'im naughty-naughty, Arfer!"</p> - -<p>But, as the crowd scraped and shuffled this way and that, they gave a -panicky clearing to a spry retreat by Kids' Man. He was done for; Arfer -was chasing him. They capered and chi-iked. Then, with a smart turn, he -landed beautifully on the point, and sent the pursuing Arfer flat to the -ground. The crowd murmured and oathfully exhorted Arfer to fink what he -was doin' of. Flatten the Kids' Man—that was his job. They met again, -and this time the Society received one on the mouth and another on the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> -nose. He sat heavily down, and his seconds flashed wet handkerchiefs. -The crowd cheered. "'Ad enough?"</p> - -<p>But with a sudden spurt he came up again. His right landed on Arfer's -nose, a natty upper-cut followed it. He got in another with his right, -and pressed his man. The lady screamed, and disregarding the ethics of -the ring, splurged in and seized the Society's coat-tails. But the crowd -begged her to desist. Then the child, who, with the toughness of her -class, had found her legs again, flitted fearfully about the fringe of -the crowd.</p> - -<p>"Wade in, mister! 'It the old woman—fetch 'er a swipe across the -snitch!"</p> - -<p>Now Kids' Man began to take an interest in the affair. Dodging a -swinging blow of his lumbering opponent, he got in a half-arm jab. They -closed, and embraced each other, and swayed, and the crowd chanted "Dear -Old Pals." For a moment they strained; then Kids' Man lifted his enemy -bodily held him, and with a peculiar twist dropped him. He lay still....</p> - -<p>A murmur of wonder swelled quickly to a broad roar. The crowd surged in, -squirming and hustling. For a moment it seemed that Kids' Man<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> would get -torn. It was just a hair's-breadth question between lynching and -triumphal chairing. The sporting spirit prevailed, and: "Raaay! Good on -yeh, mate! Well done th' S'ciety!" The lads swung in and gathered -admiringly around the victor, who tenderly caressed a damaged beetroot -of a face, while half a dozen helpers impeded each other's efforts to -render first aid to the prostrate Arfer.</p> - -<p>"Where's the blankey twicer? Lemme git 'old of 'im. Lemme git 'old of -'im!" implored the lady. But she was no longer popular, and they hustled -her aside, so that in impotent rage she smote her prostrate husband with -her foot for failing to uphold her honour before a measly little Kids' -Man what she could have torn in two wiv one hand.</p> - -<p>"Well, 'e's gotter nerve, ain't 'e?"</p> - -<p>"Firs' chap ever I knew stand up t'old Arfer. Fac'!"</p> - -<p>"Yerce—'e's—e's gotter nerve!"</p> - -<p>"Tell yeh what I say, boys—three cheers for th' Kids' Man!"</p> - -<p>And as the bruised and discoloured Kids' Man gripped the hand of Orphan -Dora and led her, brave with new importance, from the Walk to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> -headquarters, a round of beery cheering made sweet music in their rear.</p> - -<p>"Well, fancy a little chap like that.... Well, 'e's gotter blasted -nerve!"</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p>The Kids' Man. That is his title—used sometimes affectionately and -sometimes bitterly. He is the children's champion, and often he is met -with curses, and that plea of parenthood which is supposed to justify -all manner of gross and unnameable abominations: "Can't a farver do what -he likes wiv his own child?"</p> - -<p>The Society employs two hundred and fifty Inspectors, whose work is to -watch over the welfare of the children in their allotted district. But, -since most ill-treatment takes place behind closed doors, it is -difficult for an outsider to obtain direct evidence, and neighbours, -even when they know that children are being starved and daily tortured, -are shy of lodging information, lest it may lead to the publicity of the -police-court and the newspapers, and subsequently to open permanent -enmity from the people next whom they have to live.</p> - -<p>The Kids' Man is usually an old Army or Navy man, accustomed to making -himself heard,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> and able to hold his own. The chief qualities for such a -post are: a real love of children; tact and knowledge of men; and -ability to deal with a hostile reception. It is by no means pleasant, as -you have seen, to pay a warning visit to a house up a narrow alley, -whose inhabitants form something of a clan or freemasonry lodge.</p> - -<p>The motto of the Society, however, is persuasion. Prosecutions are -extremely distasteful, and are only used when all other means have -failed. In any case that comes to the Inspector's knowledge, his first -thought is the children's well-being. If they are being starved, he -provides them with food, clothes, bedding and baths, or sees that the -parish does so without any of the delays incident to parish charity. -Then he has a quiet talk with the parents, and gives a warning. Usually -this is enough. In cases where the neglect is due to lack of work, he is -sometimes an employment agency, and finds work for the father. But, if -necessary, there are more warnings, and then, with great reluctance, an -appearance in court is called for.</p> - -<p>Cruelty is of two kinds—active and passive. The passive cruelty is the -cruelty of neglect—lack of proper food, clothing, sanitation, etc. The -other kind—the active cruelty of a diabolical <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>nature—comes curiously -enough, not so much from the lower, but from the upper classes. It is -seldom that the rough navvy is deliberately cruel to his children; but -Inspectors can tell you some appalling stories of torture inflicted on -children by leisured people of means and breeding. Among their -convictions are doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and many women of position.</p> - -<p>There was one terrible case of a woman in county society—you will -remember her Cornish name—who had been guilty of atrocious cruelty to a -little girl of twelve. The Kids' Man called. The woman maintained that a -mother had a perfect right to correct her own child. She called the -child and fondled it to prove that rumour of tortures was wrong. But the -Kids' Man knows children; and the look in the child's eyes told him of -terrorizing. He demanded a medical examination.</p> - -<p>The case was proved in court. A verdict of "Guilty" was given. And the -punishment for this fair degenerate—£50 fine! The punishment for the -Kids' Man was a kind of social ostracism. There lies the difficulty of -the work. The woman's position had saved her.</p> - -<p>The Kids' Man needs to have his eyes open<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> everywhere and at every time -for signs of suffering among the little ones. And often, where a father -won't listen to advice from him, he is found amenable to suggestions -from Mrs. Inspector.</p> - -<p>In every big town in this country you will find the N.S.P.C.C. bureau, -but, in spite of their efforts, too much cruelty is going on that might -be stopped if the British people, as a race, were not too fond of -"minding their own business" and shutting their eyes to everyday evils.</p> - -<p>If you still think England a Christian and enlightened country, you had -better accompany an N.S.P.C.C. man on his daily round. Before you do so, -inspect the record at their offices. Read the verbatim reports of some -of their cases. Look at their "museum" which Mr. Parr, the secretary, -will show you; a museum more hideous than any collection of inquisition -relics or than anything in the Tower. You will then know something of -the hideous conditions of child-life in "this England of ours," and you -will be prepared for what you shall see on your tour with the Kids' Man.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span></p> - -<h2>CROWDED HOURS</h2> - -<p>What does the Cockney's mind first register when, far from home, he -visualizes the London that he loves with the casual devotion of his -type? To the serious tourist London is the shrine of England's history; -to the ordinary artist, who sees life in line and colour, it is a city -of noble or delicate "bits"; to the provincial it is a playground; to -the business man a market; but to the Cockney it is one big club, -odourous of the goodly fellowship that blossoms from contact with -human-kind.</p> - -<p>"Far from the madding crowd" may express the longings of the modern -Simeon Stylites, but your Cockney is no Simeon. He doesn't pray to be -put upon an island where the crowds are few. The thicker the crowd, the -more elbows that delve into his ribs, the hotter the steam of -human-kind, the happier he is. Far from the madding crowd be blowed! -Man's place, he holds, is among his fellows; and he sniffs with contempt -at this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>widespread desire to escape from other people. To him it is a -sign of an unhealthy mind, if not pure blasphemy.</p> - -<p>So, when he thinks of London, he does not think of a city of palaces, or -serene architectural triumphs; of a huckster's mart or a playground. At -the word "London" he sees people: the crowds in the Strand, in Walworth -Road, Lavender Hill, Whitechapel Road, Camden Town High Street.</p> - -<p>Your moods may be various, and London will respond. You may work, you -may idly dream away the hours, or you may actively enjoy yourself in -play; but if you wish that supreme enjoyment—the enjoyment of other -people—then London affords opportunities in larger measure than any -city that I know.</p> - -<p>I discovered the magic and allure of crowds when I was fourteen years -old and worked as office-boy in those filthy alleys marked in the Postal -Directory as "E.C." Streets and crowds became my refreshment and -entertainment then, and my palate is not yet blunted to their savour. I -do not want the flowery mead or the tree-covered lane or the -insect-ridden glade—at least, not for long; and I hate that dreadful -hollow behind the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> little wood. Give me six o'clock in the evening and a -walk from the City to Oxford Circus, through the soft Spring or the -darkling Autumn, with festive feet whispering all around you, and your -heart filled with that grey-green romance which is London.</p> - -<p>Once out of Newgate Street and across Holborn Viaduct I was happy, for I -was, so to speak, in a foreign country; so wholly different were the -people of Holborn from the people of Cheapside. The crowds of the City -had always to me, a mean, craven air about them. They walked homeward -with lagging steps and worn faces. They seemed always preoccupied with -paltry problems. They carried the stamp of their environment: a dusty -market-place, in which things made by more adept hands and brains are -passed from wholesale place to wholesale place with sorry bargaining on -the odd halfpenny.</p> - -<p>But West and West Central were a pleasuance of the finer essences, and -involuntarily body and soul assumed there a transient felicity of gait. -One walked and thought suavely. There were noble shops, brilliant -theatres, dainty restaurants, highways whose sole business was pleasure, -rent with gay lights and oh! so many delightful people. At<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> restaurant -and theatre doors one might pause pensively and touch finger-tips, as it -were, with rose-leaf grace and beauty and fine comradeship; a refreshing -exercise after encounters with the sordid and the uncouth in Gracechurch -Street. Then, when the hoofs clattered and the motors hooted and the -whistles blew, and streets were drenched with festal light and festal -folk, I was, I felt, abroad. Figure to yourself that you are walking -through the streets of Teheran, or Stamboul, or Moscow, surrounded by -strange bazaars and people who seem to have stepped from some book of -magic so far removed are they from your daily interests. So did I feel -as I walked down Piccadilly. It was suffocating to think that there were -so many streets to explore, so many types to meet and to know. I wanted -then to make heaps and heaps of friends—not, I must confess, for -friendship—but just for the sake of meeting people who did interesting -and gracious things, and for the sake of knowing that I <i>had</i> a host of -friends. The plashing of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, the lights -of the Alhambra and Empire seen through the green trees of Leicester -Square, the procession of 'buses along Holborn and Oxford Streets, the -alluring teashops of Piccadilly and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> scornful opulence of the -hotels—these things sank into me and became part of me.</p> - -<p>My way to the City lay through Leicester Square, and the morning crowd -in that quarter bears for me still the same charm. On a bright Spring -day it might be Paris. There is a sense of space and sparkle about it. -The little milliners' girls, in piquant frocks, evoke memories of -Louise, and the crowding curls on their cheeks waft a perfume of -youth-time lyrics, chiming softly against the more strident and -repulsively military garb of the girl porters and doorkeepers. The -cleaners, bustling about the steps of the music-halls, throw -adumbrations of entertainment on the morning streets. People are -leisurely busy in an agreeable way—not the huckstering E.C. way.</p> - -<p>In Piccadilly Circus there is the same sense of light and song among the -crowds emerging from the Tube. The shops are decked in all the colours -of the Maytime, and not one little workgirl but pauses to throw a mute -appeal to the posturing silks and laces and pray that the lily-wristed, -wanton damsel of Fortune will turn a hand in her direction.</p> - -<p>But in the City, as I have said, there is little of this delight to be -found, either at morning, noon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> or night. The typical crowd of this -district may be seen at London Bridge, where, from eight to half-past -ten in the morning and from half-past five to half-past seven in the -evening, the dispirited toilers swarm to or from work. Indeed, it is not -a crowd: it is a <i>cortège</i>, marching to the obsequies of hope and fear. -It is a funeral march of marionettes. Here are no gay colours; no -smiles; no persiflage. All is sombre. Even the typists and the little -workgirls make no effort towards bright raiment; all is dingy and -soiled, not with the clean dirt that hangs about the barges and wharves -on the river, but with the mustiness of old ledgers and letter-files. -Listless in the morning and taciturn in the evening are these people; -and to watch them for an hour from the windows of the Bridge House Hotel -is to suffer an attack of spiritual dyspepsia. For, among them, are men -who have crossed that bridge twice daily for thirty years, walking -always on the same side, always at the same pace, and arriving at the -other end at precisely the same minute. There are men who began that -daily journey with bright boyish faces, clean collars, and their first -bowler hats, brave with the importance of working in the City. Their -hearts were fired with dreams and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>ambition. They had heard tales of -office-boys who, by industry, had been taken eventually into -partnership. They received their first rise. Later, they achieved the -romantic riches of thirty shillings a week. They made the acquaintance -of a girl in their suburban High Street. They married. And now, at -forty-five, all ambition gone, they are working in the same murky corner -of the same office, and maintaining wife and child on three pounds a -week. Their trousers are frayed and bag at the knees. Their coats are -without nap or grace. Two collars a week suffice. Gone are the shining -dreams. They have "settled down," without being conscious of the fact, -and will make that miserable journey, with other sombre and silent -phantoms, until the end. Verily, the London Bridge crowd of respectables -is the most tragic of all London crowds, and the bridge itself a <i>via -dolorosa</i>.</p> - -<p>I do not know why work in the City should produce a more deadening -effect on the souls of the workers than work in other quarters, but the -fact that it does is recognized by all students of Labour conditions. I -have worked in all quarters, and have noticed a curious change of -outlook when I moved from the City to Fleet Street, or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> from Fleet -Street to Piccadilly. You shall notice it, too, in the faces of the -lunch-time crowds. East of St. Paul's, the note is apathy. Coming -westward, just to Fleet Street, you perceive a change. Here boys and -girls, men and women, seem to take an interest in things; one -understands that they like their work. They do not regard it as a mere -routine, to be dragged through somehow until the clock releases them.</p> - -<p>A similar study in crowd psychology awaits you at the Tube stations in -the early hours of the evening, when the rush is on. With elbows wedged -into your ribs, and strange hot breaths pouring down your neck, you need -all the serenity you have stored against such contingencies; and the -attitude of the other people about you can mitigate your distress or -enhance it. The City and South London crowd is not the kind of crowd -that can bear its own troubles cheerfully, or help others to bear -theirs. I would never wish to go on a day's holiday with any of its -people. Their composite frame of mind is one of weak anger, expressive -of "Why isn't Something Done? What's the use of going on like this?"</p> - -<p>More comely is the St. James's Park or Westminster crowd. From five to -half-past six these<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> stations receive a steady stream of sweet and merry -little girls from the mushroom Government Departments that have spawned -all about this quarter. It is girls, girls, girls, all the way, with the -feeble and the aged of the male species toiling behind.</p> - -<p>On the Bakerloo you find a crowd that is—well, "rorty" is the only -word. The people here are mostly southbound for the Elephant and Castle; -and you know the Elephant and Castle and its warm, impetuous life. There -are bold youths who have not fallen, like their fathers, to the cajolery -of a collar-and-cuff job in the City, but have taken up the work that -offers the best pecuniary reward. Grimy youths they are, but full of -vitality, and they pour down the staircase in a Niagara of humanity.</p> - -<p>An excellent centre for observing the varying moods of the evening crowd -is Villiers Street, that gentle slope from which you may reach Charing -Cross Station, the Hampstead Tube, the District Railway, or the -Embankment trams. It is a finely mixed company, for, as any Londoner -will tell you, the residents of the hundred suburbs differ from one -another in manner, accent and appearance, even as the natives of -different <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>continents. Those who are using the Hampstead Tube are -sharply marked from those who are taking the Embankment car to Clapham -Junction; while those who are journeying on the South-Eastern to Croydon -have probably never heard of Upton Park, whither the District will carry -others. There are well-dressed people and ill-dressed people; some who -are going home to soup, fish, a <i>soufflé</i> and coffee, with wine and -liqueurs; and some who are going home to "tea," at about eight -o'clock—bread-and-margarine and bloater paste, with a pint of tea, or, -occasionally, a bit of tripe and onions. There are people in a mad -hurry, and others who move in aloof idleness. And above them all stand -the stalwart Colonials, waiting until 6.30, when the bars shall open, -airily inspecting the troops of girls and comparing notes.</p> - -<p>"Say now, jes' watch here. Here comes a real Fanny."</p> - -<p>"Ah, gwan. I ain' got no time for Fannies. I finished wid 'em. Gimme -beer, every time."</p> - -<p>I have often wanted to make a song of Villiers Street, but I have never -been able to catch just the essence of its atmosphere. I am sure, -though, that the modern orchestra offers opportunities for<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> one of our -new composers to embrace it in an overture. No effort has been made, so -far as I know, to interpret in music the noisy soul of the London -crowds. Elgar's "Cockaigne" overture and Percy Grainger's "Handel in the -Strand" were both retrospective in spirit, and the real thing yet -remains to be done. It has been done on the Continent by Suppé -("Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna"), by Sibelius in his "Finlandia," -by Massenet in his "Southern Town," and by Dvorák in "Carneval Roman." I -await with eagerness a "Morning, Noon and Night at Charing Cross," -scored by a born Cockney.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span></p> - -<h2>SATURDAY NIGHT</h2> - -<p>The origins of Saturday night, as a social institution, are obscure. No -doubt a little research would discover them to the earnest seeker, but I -am temperamentally averse from anything like research. It is tedious in -process and disappointing in result. Successful research means grasping -at the reality and dropping the romance.</p> - -<p>The outstanding fact about Saturday night is that it is an exclusively -British institution. Neither America nor the Continent knows its -precious joys. It is one of the few British institutions that reconcile -me to being an islander. It is a festival that is observed with the same -casual ritual in the London slums and in Northumberland mining villages; -in Scottish hills and in the byways of the Black Country; in Camden Town -High Street and in the hamlets of the Welsh marches. Certainly, so long -as my aged elders can carry their memories, and the memories of their -fathers before them, Saturday night has been a festival recognized in -all homely homes. Strange that it has only once been celebrated in -literature.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p><p>It is, as it were, a short grace before the meal of leisure offered by -the Sabbath; a side-dish before the ample banquet; a trifling with the -olives of sweet idleness. On Saturday night the cares of the week are, -for a space, laid aside, and men and women gather with their kind for -amiable chatter and such mild conviviality as the times may afford. Then -the bonds of preoccupation are loosed, and men escape for dalliance with -the lighter things of life. Then the good gossips in town and country -take their sober indulgence in the social amenities. In village street, -or raucous town highway, they will pause between shops to greet this or -that neighbour and discuss affairs of mutual concern.</p> - -<p>On Saturday night is kept the festival of the String Bag, one of those -many rigid feasts of the people that find no place in the Kalendar of -the Prayer Book. Go where you will about the country on this night, and -you will witness the celebration of this good domestic saint by the -cheerful and fully choral service of Shopping. Go to East Street -(Walworth Road); to St. John's Road (Battersea); to Putney High Street; -to Stratford Broadway; to Newington Butts; to Caledonian Road; to Upper -Street (Islington); to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>Norton-Folgate; to Kingsland Road; to Salmon -Lane (Limehouse); to Mare Street (Hackney); to the Electric Avenue -(Brixton); to Powis Street (Woolwich); to the great shopping centres of -provincial cities or to the easier market-places of the rural district, -and you will find this service lustily in progress; the shops lit with a -fresh glamour for this their special occasion. You will taste a -something in the air—a sense of well-being, almost of carnival—that -marks this night from other nights of the week. You will see Mother -hovering about the shops and stalls, her eye peeled for the elusive -bargain, while Father, or one of the children, stands away off with the -bag; and when the goodwife has achieved all that she set out to do, and -the string bag is distended like an overfed baby, then comes the -crowning joy of the feast, when the shoppers slip together into the -private bar of the "Green Dragon" or the "White Horse," and compare -notes with other Saturday-nighters and condemn the beer.</p> - -<p>Saturday night is also, in millions of homes, Bath Night; another of the -pious functions of this festival; and for this ceremony the attendance -of the heads of the household is compulsory. Then the youngsters, -according to their natures, howl<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> with delight or alarm as their turn -for the tub approaches. They will be scrubbed by Mother and dried by -Father; and when the whole brood is well and truly bathed and packed off -to bed, the elders will depart with the string bag, and perchance, if -shopping be expeditiously accomplished, take it, well-filled, to the -second house of the local Empire or Palace.</p> - -<p>Do you not remember—unless you were so unfortunate as to be brought up -in what are called well-to-do surroundings—do you not remember the -tingling delight that was yours when, to ensure correct behaviour during -the week, the prospect was dangled before you of going shopping on -Saturday night? Many Saturday nights do I recall, chiefly by association -with these shopping expeditions, when I was permitted to carry the -string bag; and the shopping expeditions again are recalled through the -agency of smell. Never does my memory work so swiftly as when assisted -by the nose; I am a bit of a dog in that way. When I catch the hearty -smell of a provision shop, I leap back twenty-five years and I see the -tempestuous Saturday-evening lights of Lavender Hill from the altitude -of three-foot-six; and I remember how I would catalogue shop smells in -my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> mind. There were the solemn smell of the furniture shop; the -wholesome smell of the oilshop; the pungent smell of the chemist's; the -potent smell of the "Dog and Duck", where I received my weekly -heart-cake; the stiff smell of the linen-drapers'; the overpowering -odour of the boot-shop, and the aromatic perfume of the grocer's; all of -which, in one grand combination, present the smell of Saturday night: a -smell as sharp and individual as the smell of Sunday morning or the -smell of early-closing afternoon in the suburbs. If Rip van Winkle were -to awake in any town or village on Saturday night, he would need no -calendar to name for him the day of the week: the smell, the aspect, and -the temper of the streets would surely inform him.</p> - -<p>But lately Saturday night has come under control, and the severe hand of -authority has wrenched away the most of its delight. Not now may the -String Baggers express their individuality in shopping. Having -registered for necessary comestibles at a given shop, they enjoy no more -the sport of bargain-hunting, or of setting rival tradesmen in cheerful -competition. Not now may the villagers crowd the wayside station for -their single weekly railway trip to the neighbouring<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> town, where was -larger scope for the perfect shopper than the native village could -afford. No more may the earnest London Saturday-nighter journey by tram -or bus to outlying markets because the quality of the meat was better in -that district than in his own, or the price of eggs a penny -lower—though, if the truth be known, these facts were mostly proffered -as excuse for the excursion. No more do residents of Brixton travel to -Clapham Junction for their Sunday stores, or the elegant ones of -Streatham slink guiltily to Walworth Road. No more is Hampstead seen -chaffering at the stalls of Camden Town, or Bayswater struggling -gallantly about the shops of the Edgware Road and Kilburn.</p> - -<p>The main function of Saturday night has died a dismal death. Still, the -social side remains. Shopping of a sort still has to be done. One may -still meet one's cronies in the market streets, and compare the bulk and -quality of one's ration of this and that, and take a draught of insipid -ale at the "Blue Pigeon", and talk of the untowardness of the times. But -half of the savour is gone out of the week's event; and it is well that -the Scots peasant made his song about it before it was controlled.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p> - -<h2>RENDEZVOUS</h2> - -<p>Although London possesses a thousand central points suitable for a -street rendezvous, Londoners seem to have decided by tacit agreement to -use only five of these for their outdoor appointments. They are: Charing -Cross Post Office, Leicester Square Tube, Piccadilly Tube, under the -Clock at Victoria, and Oxford Circus Tube; and I have never known my -friends telephone me for a meeting and fix a rendezvous outside this -list. Indeed, I can now, by long experience, place the habits and -character of casual acquaintances who wish to meet me, from their choice -among these places.</p> - -<p>Thus, a Charing Cross Post Office appointment means a pleasure -appointment. Here, at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, wait the bright -girls and golden boys, their faces, like living lamps, shining through -the cloud of pedestrians as a signal for that one for whom they wait. -And, though you be late in keeping the appointment, you may be certain -that the waiting party will be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> in placid mood. There is so much to -distract and delight you on this small corner. There are the bustle of -the Strand and the stopping buses; the busy sweep of Trafalgar Square, -so spacious that its swift stream of traffic suggests leisure; the hot -smell of savouries rising from the kitchens of Morley's Hotel; and the -cynical amusement to be drawn from a study of the meetings and -encounters of other waiting folk. Hundreds of appointments have I kept -at Charing Cross Post Office. I have met soldier-friends there, after an -absence of three years. I have met cousins and sisters and aunts, and -damsels who stood not in any of these relations. And I have met the Only -One there, many, many times; often happily; often in trepidation; and -sometimes in lyrical ecstasy, as when a quarrel and a long parting have -received the benison of reconciliation. Now, I can never pass the Post -Office without a tremor, for its swart, squat exterior is, for me, -bowered with delicious thrills.</p> - -<p>Never keep an appointment under the Clock at Victoria. A meeting here is -fatal to the sweetness of the intercourse that is to follow. Always he -or she who arrives first will be peevish or irate by the time the second -party turns up; for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>Victoria Station, with its lowering roof, affects -you with a frightful sense of being shut in and smothered. Turn how you -will, sharply or gently, and you cannon with some petulant human, and, -retiring apologetically from him, you impale your kidney region on some -fool's walking-stick or umbrella. That fool asks you to look where -you're going, and then he gets his from a truck-load of luggage. You -laugh—bitterly. After three minutes of waiting in that violet-tinted -beehive, you loathe your fellow-man; you loathe the entire animal -kingdom. You "come over in one of them prickly 'eats." Your nerves flap -about you like bits of bunting, and the new spring suit that set in such -fine lines seems fit only for scaring birds. Then your friend arrives, -and God help him if he's late!</p> - -<p>I have watched these Victoria appointments many times while waiting for -my train. The first party to the contract arrives, glances at the clock, -and strolls to the bookstall, cheerfully swinging stick or umbrella. He -strolls back to the clock, glances, compares it with his watch. Hums a -bar or two. Coughs. A flicker of dismay shades his face. Then a -handicapped runner for the 6.15 crashes violently against him in -avoiding a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>platoon of soldiers, and knocks his hat over his eyes and -his stick ten yards away. When the great big world ceases turning and he -finds a voice, the offender has gone. The next glance he shoots at the -clock is choleric. A slight prod from an old lady who wishes to find the -main booking-office produces a spout of fury; and the comedy ends with a -gestic departure, in the course of which he gets a little of his own -back on other of his species. His final glance at the clock is charged -with the pure essence of malevolence.</p> - -<p>How much more gracious is an appointment in the great resounding hall of -Euston, though this is mainly a travellers' rendezvous and is seldom -used for general appointments. Here, cloistered from the rush and roar -of the station proper, yet always with a cheerful sense of loud -neighbourhood, the cathedral mood is induced. You become benign, Gothic. -There are pleasant straw seats. There are writing-tables with real ink. -There are noble photographs of English beauty-spots, and—oh, heaps of -dinky little models of railway trains and Irish Channel steamers which -light up when you drop pennies in the slots. Vast, serene and episcopal -is this rendezvous—it always reminds me of the Athenæum Club; and, -however<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> protracted your vigil, it showers upon you something of its -quality; so that, though your friend be twenty minutes late, you still -receive him affably, and talk in conversational tones of this and of -that, instead of roaring the obvious like a baseball fan, as Victoria's -hall demands. You may even make subtle epigrams at Euston, and your -friend will take their point. I'd like to hear someone try to convey a -fine shade of meaning in Victoria.</p> - -<p>Oxford Circus Tube I register as the meeting-ground of the suburban -flapper and the suburban shopping mamma. Its note is little swinging -skirts, and artful silk stockings, and shining curls, that dance to the -sober music of the matron's rustling satin. The waiting dames carry -those dinky little brown-paper bags, stamped with the name of some -Oxford Street draper, at whose contents the idler may amuse himself by -guessing—a ribbon, a camisole, a flower-spray for a hat, gloves, or -those odd lengths of cloth and linen which women will buy—though Lord -knows to what esoteric use they put them. Hither come, too, those lonely -people who, through the medium of "Companionship" columns or -Correspondence Circles, have found a congenial soul. Why they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> choose -Oxford Circus I don't know, but they are always to be seen there. You -may recognize the type at first glance. They peer and scan closely every -arrival, for, though correspondence has introduced them to the other -soul, they have not yet seen the body, and they are searching for -someone to fit the description that has been supplied; as thus: "I am of -medium height and shall be wearing a black hat, trimmed with Michaelmas -daisies, and a fawn macintosh," or "I am tall, and shall be wearing a -grey suit and black soft hat and spectacles, and will carry a copy of -the <i>Buff Review</i> in my hand." One is pleased to speculate on the result -of the meeting. Is it horrible disillusion, or does the flint find its -fellow-flint and produce the true spark? Do they thereafter look happily -upon Oxford Circus Tube, or pass it with a shudder?</p> - -<p>The crowd that hovers about the Leicester Square Tube entrances affords -little matter for reflection. It is so obvious. It is so Leicester -Square. It alternately snarls and leers. It never truly smiles; it is so -tired of the smiling business. The loud garb of the women tells its own -tale. For the rest, there are bejewelled black men, a few Australian and -Belgian soldiers, and a few<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> disgruntled and "shopless" actors. I never -accept an appointment at Leicester Square Tube. It puts me off the lunch -or dinner or whatever business is the object of the meeting. It is -ignoble, squalid, with an air of sickly decency about it.</p> - -<p>A few yards further Westward, at Piccadilly Tube, the atmosphere -changes. One tastes the ampler ether and diviner air. It does not, like -Charing Cross Post Office, sing April and May, but rather the mellowness -of August and September. Good solid people meet here; people -"comfortably off," as the phrase goes; people who have lived largely, -but have not lost their capacity for deliberate enjoyment. At meal-times -they gather thickly; quiet, dainty women; obese majors; Government -officials; and that nondescript type that wears shabby, well-cut clothes -with an air of prosperity and breeding. You may almost name the first -words that will be spoken when a couple meet: "Well, where shall we go? -Trocadero, Criterion—or Soho?" There is little hilarity; people don't -"let themselves go" at this rendezvous. They are out for entertainment, -but it is mild, well-ordered entertainment. The note of the crowd is, -"If a thing is worth doing at all, it's worth doing well," even if the -thing is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> only a hurried lunch or a curfew-rationed theatre.</p> - -<p>Classifying London's meeting-places by their moral atmospheres, I would -mark Charing Cross Post Office as juvenile; Oxford Circus Tube as youth; -Leicester Square Tube as senility; Piccadilly Tube as middle-age; the -Great Hall at Euston as reverend seniority; and Victoria Station—well, -Victoria Station should get a total-rejection certificate.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span></p> - -<h2>TRAGEDY AND COCKNEYISM</h2> - -<p>The Cockney is popularly supposed to stand for the fixed type of the -blasphemous and the cynical in his speech and attitude to life. He is -supposed to jump with hobnailed boots on all things and institutions -that are, to others, sacred. He is supposed to admit no solemnities, no -traditional rites or services, to the big moments of life.</p> - -<p>This is wrong. The Cockney's attitude to life is perhaps more solemn -than that of any other social type, save when he is one of a crowd of -his fellows; and then arises some primitive desire to mock and destroy. -He will say "sir" to people who maintain their carriages or cars in his -own district; but on Bank Holidays, when he visits territories remote -from his home, he will roar and chi-ike at the pompous and the rich -wherever he sees it.</p> - -<p>But the popular theory of the Cockney is most effectively exploded when -he is seen in a dramatic situation or in some moment of emotional -stress. He does not then cry "Gorblimey" or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>"Comartovit" or some -current persiflage of the day; or stand reticent and monosyllabic, as -some superior writers depict him; but, from some atavistic cause, harks -back to the speech of forgotten Saxon forefathers.</p> - -<p>This trick you will find reflected in the melodrama and the cheap serial -story that are made for his entertainment. It is hostile to superior -opinion, but it is none the less true to say that melodrama does -endeavour to reflect life as it is. When the wronged squire says to his -erring son: "Get you gone; never darken my doors again," he is not -talking a particular language of melodrama. He may be a little out of -his part as a squire; that is not what a father of long social position -and good education would say to a scapegrace son; but it is what an -untaught town labourer would say in such a circumstance; and, as these -plays are written for him, the writers draw their inspiration from his -speech and manners. The programme allure of the Duke of Bentborough, -Lord Ernest Swaddling, Lady Gwendoline Flummery, and so on, is used -simply to bring him to the theatre. The scenes he witnesses, and the -scenes he pays to witness, show himself banishing his son, himself -forgiving his prodigal <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>daughter, with his own attitudes and his own -speech. The illiterate do not quote melodrama; melodrama quotes them.</p> - -<p>Again and again this has been proved in London police-courts. When the -emotions are roused, the Cockney does not pick his words and alight -carefully on something he heard at the theatre last week; nor does he -become sullen and abashed. He becomes violently vocal. He speaks out of -himself. Although he seldom enters a church, the grip of the church is -so tightly upon him that you may, as it were, see its knuckles standing -in white relief when he speaks of solemn affairs. If you ask him about -his sick Uncle John, he will not tell you that Uncle John is dead, or -has "pegged out" or "snuffed it"; such phrases he reserves for reporting -the passing of Prime Ministers, Dukes and millionaires. He will tell you -that Uncle John has "passed away" or "gone home"; that it is a "happy -release"; and, between swigs at his beer, he will give you intimate, but -carefully veiled, details of his passing. He will never speak of the -elementary, universal facts of life without the use of euphemism. A -young unmarried mother is always spoken of as having "got into trouble." -It is never said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> that she is about to have a baby; she is "expecting." -He never reports that an acquaintance has committed suicide; he has -"done away with himself" or "made a hole in the water."</p> - -<p>At an inquest on a young girl in the Bermondsey district, the mother was -asked when last she saw her daughter.</p> - -<p>"A'Monday. And that was the last time I ever clapped eyes on her, as -Gawd is my witness."</p> - -<p>At another inquest on a Hoxton girl, a young railwayman was called as -witness. Having given his evidence, he suddenly rushed to the body, and -bent over it, and cried loudly:—</p> - -<p>"Oh, my dove, my dear! My little blossom's been plucked away!"</p> - -<p>In a police-court maternity case, I heard the following from the mother -of the deserted girl, who had lost her case; "Ah, God! an' shall this -villain escape from his crime scot-free?" And in the early days of the -war a bereaved woman created a scene at an evening service in a South -London Church with this audible prayer: "Oh, Gawd, take away this Day of -Judgment from the people, fer the sake of Thy Son Jesus. Amen."</p> - -<p>Again, at Thames Police Court, during a case<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> of theft against a boy of -seventeen, the father was called, and admitted to turning his son from -home when he was fifteen, because of his criminal ways.</p> - -<p>"Yerce, I did send 'im orf. An' never shall 'is foot cross my threshold -until 'e's mended 'is evil ways."</p> - -<p>The same reversion to passionate language may be found in many of the -unreported incidents of battle. I have heard of Cockneys, whose pals -were killed at their side, and of their comment on the affair in the -stress of the moment:—</p> - -<p>"Old George! I loved old George better'n I loved anything in the world. -I'd 'ave give my 'eart's blood fer George."</p> - -<p>And the cry of a mother at the Old Bailey, when her son was sentenced to -death:—</p> - -<p>"Oh, take me. Take my old grey 'airs. Let me die in 'is stead."—</p> - -<p>And here is the extraordinary statement of a girl of fourteen, who, -tired of factory hours and home, ran away for a few days, and then would -not go back for fear of being whipped by her father. At the end of her -holiday she gave herself up to the police on the other side of London<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> -from her home, and this was her statement to them:—</p> - -<p>"Why can't I go where I want to? I don't do anybody any harm. I knew the -world was good. I got tired of all the monotony, an' the same old thing -every day, an' I wanted to get out. I am. Why bother me? I wonder why I -can't go out and do as I like, so long as I don't do no harm. I thought -the world was so big an' good, but in reality living in it is like being -in a cage. You can't do nothing in this world unless somebody else -consents."</p> - -<p>Strange wisdom from a child of fourteen, spoken in moments of terror -before uniformed policemen in that last fear of the respectable—the -police-station. But it is in such official places that the Cockney loses -the part he is for ever playing—though, like most of us, he is playing -it unconsciously—and becomes something strangely lifted from the airy, -confident materialist of his common moments. The educated man, on the -other hand, brought into court or into other dramatic surroundings, -ceases to be himself and begins to act. The Cockney, normally without -dignity, achieves it in dramatic moments, where<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> the man of position and -dignity usually crumbles away to rubbish or ineptitude.</p> - -<p>Hence, only the wide-eyed writers of melodrama have successfully -produced the Cockney on the stage. True, they dress him in evening -clothes, and surround him with impossible butlers and footmen, but if -you want to probe the Cockney's soul, and cannot probe it at first-hand, -it is to melodrama and the cheap serial that you must turn; not to the -slum stories of novelists who live in Kensington or to the "low-life" -plays of condescending dramatists.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> - -<h2>MINE EASE AT MINE INN</h2> - -<p>When everything in your little world goes wrong; when you can do nothing -right; when you have cut yourself while shaving, and it has rained all -day, and the taxis have splashed your collar with mud, and you receive -an Army notice, post-marked on the outer covering <i>Buy National War -Bonds Now</i>—in short, when you are fed up, what do you do?</p> - -<p>To each man his own remedy. I know one man who, in such circumstances, -goes to bed and reads Ecclesiastes; another who goes on an evening jag; -another who goes for a ten-mile walk in desolate country; another who -digs up his garden; another who reads school stories. But my own cure is -to board a London tram-car bound for the outer suburbs, and take mine -ease at a storied sixteenth-century inn.</p> - -<p>Where is this harbour of refuge? No, thank you; I am not giving it away. -I am too fearful that it may become popular and thereby spoiled. I will -only tell you that its sign is "The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>Chequers"; that it is a -low-pitched, rambling post-house, with cobbled coach-yard, and -ridiculous staircases that twist and wind in all directions, and rooms -where apparently no rooms could be; that it was for a while the G.H.Q. -of Charles the First; and that it is soaked in that ripe, substantial -atmosphere that belongs to places where companies of men have for -centuries eaten and drunken and quarrelled and loved and rejoiced.</p> - -<p>You talk of your galleried inns of Chester and Shrewsbury and Ludlow and -Salisbury, and your thousand belauded old-world villages of the West.... -Here, within a brief tram-ride of London, so close to the centre of -things that you may see the mantle of metropolitan smoke draping the -spires and steeples, is a place as rich in the historic thrill as any of -these show-places.</p> - -<p>But its main charm for me is the goodly fellowship and comfortable talk -to be had in the little smoking-room, decorated with original sketches -by famous black-and-white men who make it their week-end rendezvous. You -may be a newcomer at "The Chequers," but you will not long be lonely -unless your manner cries a desire for solitude. Its rooms are aglow with -all those little delights of the true inn that are now almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> -legendary. One reads in old fiction and drama of noble inns and -prodigally hospitable landlords; but I have always found it difficult to -accept these pictures as truth. I have sojourned in so many old inns -about the country, and found little welcome, unless I arrived in a car -and ordered expensive accommodation. It was not until I spent a night at -"The Chequers" that I discovered an inn that might have been invented by -Fielding, and a landlord who is and who looks the true Boniface.</p> - -<p>I had missed the last car and the last train back to town. I wandered -down the not very tidy High Street, and called at one or two of the -hundred taverns that jostle one another in the street's brief length. -The external appearance of "The Chequers" promised at least a -comfortable bed, and I booked a room, and then wandered to the bar. I -felt dispirited, as I always do in inns and hotels; as though I were an -intruder with no friend in the world. I ordered a drink and looked round -the little bar. My company were a police-sergeant in uniform, a -horsey-looking man in brown gaiters, an elderly, saturnine fellow in -easy tweeds, a young fellow in blue overall—obviously an electrician's -<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>mechanic—and a little, merry-faced chap with a long flowing moustache. -I scrutinized faces, and sniffed the spiritual atmosphere of each man. -It was the usual suburban bar crowd, and I assumed that I was in for a -dull time. The talk was all saloon-bar platitudes—<i>This was a Terrible -War. The rain was coming down, wasn't it? Yes, but the farmers could do -with it. Yes, but you could have too much of a good thing, couldn't you? -Ah, you could never rely on the English climate.... Three shillings a -pound they were. Scandalous. Robbery. Somebody was making some money out -of this war. Ah, there was a lot going on in Whitehall that the public -never heard about....</i> So, clutching at a straw, I opened the local -paper, and read about A Pretty Wedding at St. Matthew's, and a -Presentation to Mr. Gubbins, and a Runaway Horse in the High Street, and -a——</p> - -<p>Then came the felicitous shock. From the horsey man came words that -rattled on my ears like the welcome hoofs of a relief-party.</p> - -<p>"No, it wasn't Euripides, I keep telling you. It was Sophocles," he -insisted. "I know it was Sophocles. I got the book at home—in a -translation. And I see it played some time ago in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> town. Ask Mr. -Connaught here if I'm not right." He grew flushed as he argued his -rightness. I followed the direction of his nod. Mr. Connaught was the -disgruntled-looking man in tweeds. And Mr. Connaught set down his -whisky, fished in a huge well of a side-pocket, and produced—<i>Œdipus -Rex</i> in the original Greek, and began to talk of it.</p> - -<p>I sank back, abashed at my too previous judgment. Here was a man who, -during the half-hour that I had been sitting there, had talked like a -grocer or a solicitor's clerk—of the obvious and in the obvious way. It -was he who had made the illuminating remarks that there was a lot going -on in Whitehall that we didn't know anything about, and that you could -never rely on the English climate. And now he was raving about -Sophocles, and chanting fragments to the assembled whisky-drinkers. -Tiring of Sophocles, he dived again into the pocket and produced -Aristophanes.</p> - -<p>The talk then became general. The constable, apparently annoyed at so -much Latin and Greek, thrust into the chatter a loud contention that -when a man had finished with English authors, then was time enough to go -to the classics. Give him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> Boswell's <i>Johnson</i> and <i>Pepys' Diary</i> and a -set of Dickens written in the language of his fathers, to keep on the -dressing-table, within easy reach of the bed, like. The electrician's -mechanic couldn't bother with novels; he was up to the neck just now in -Spencer and Häckel and Bergson, and if we hadn't read Bergson, then we -ought to: we were missing something. Then somehow the talk switched to -music, and there followed a dissertation by the police-sergeant on -ancient church music and the futility of grand opera, and names like -Palestrina and Purcell and Corelli were thrown about, with a cross-fire -of "Bitter, please, Miss Fortescue"—"Martell, please; just a splash of -soda—don't drown it"—"Have you tried the beer at the -'Hole-in-the-Wall?'—horrible muck"—"Come on—drink up, there, Fred; -you're very slow to-night."</p> - -<p>"D'you know this little thing by Sibelius?" asked the merry fellow; and -hummed a few bars from the <i>Thousand Seas</i>.</p> - -<p>"Ah, get away with yer moderns!" snapped the police-sergeant. "This -Debussy, Scriabine, Schonberg and that gang. Keep to the simplicities, I -say—Handel, Bach, Haydn and Gluck. Listen to this;" and he suddenly -drew back from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> the bar, lifted a mellow voice at full strength, and -delivered "Che Faro" from <i>Orfeo</i>; and then took a mighty swig at a pint -tankard and said that it had just that bite that you only get when it's -drawn from the wood.</p> - -<p>It took me some time to pull myself together and sort things out. I -wondered what I had stumbled upon: whether other pubs in this suburb -offered similar intellectual refreshment; whether all the local -tradesmen were bookmen and music-lovers; and how to reconcile the dreary -talk that I had first heard with the enthusiastic and individual -discourse that was now proceeding. I wondered whether it were a dream, -and how soon I should wake up. If it were real, I wondered if people -would believe me if I told them of it.</p> - -<p>But soon I dismissed all speculation, for by a happy chance I was drawn -into the circle. Some discussion having arisen on beer and its varying -quality, a member of the company produced a once-popular American -pamphlet, entitled <i>Ten Nights in a Bar-Room</i>; whereupon I handed round -a little brochure of my own, compiled, for private circulation, from -contributions by members of that London rambling Club, "The Blueskin -Gang," and entitled <i>Ten Bar-Rooms in a Night</i>. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>This pleased the -company, and I at once became popular and had to take my part in the -gigantic beer-drinking. Then the merry-faced little fellow slipped away, -and quickly returned to counter my move with an old calf-bound -seventeenth-century book, <i>The Malt-Worm's Guide</i>: a description of the -principal London taverns of the period, with notes as to the -representative patrons and the quality of the entertainment, material -and moral, offered by each establishment; every page adorned with -preposterous but captivating woodcuts.</p> - -<p>On my suggesting that "The Blueskin Gang" might compile a similar guide -on the London bars of to-day, each member of the company burst in with -material for such a work. We decided that it would be impossible to -follow the model of <i>The Malt-Worm's Guide</i> for such a work, since the -London taverns of to-day are fast shedding their individual character. -Formerly, one might know certain houses as a printers' bar, a -journalists' bar, a lawyers', and so on. The "Cock," in Fleet Street, -remains a rendezvous for legal gentry, and the taverns between -Piccadilly and Curzon Street are still "used" by grooms and butlers; and -two Oxford Street bars are the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>unregistered headquarters of the -furniture trade. And do you know the "Steam Engine" in Bermondsey, the -haunt of the South-Eastern Railway men, where gather engine-drivers, -firemen, guards and other mighty travellers? A pleasant house, with just -that touch of uncleanliness that goes with what some people call low -company, and produces a harmony of rough living that is so attractive to -matey men. And the Burton they used to sell in old times—oh, boy—as my -American friends say—even to think of it gives you that gr-rand and -gl-lor-ious feelin'.</p> - -<p>But these places make the full list. The war has largely obliterated -fine distinctions. The taverns of the Strand and its side streets, once -the clubs of the lower Thespians, have become the rendezvous of Colonial -soldiers. The jewellers who once foregathered at the Monico, have been -driven out by French and Belgian military; and Hummum's, in Covent -Garden, into which you hardly dared enter unless you were a market-man, -has become anybody's property.</p> - -<p>While I named the taverns of central London and their pre-war character, -others of the company threw in details of obscure but highly-flavoured -houses in outlying quarters of the city<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> to which their business had at -times occasioned them, with much inside information as to the special -drinks of each establishment and its regular frequenters. I saw at once -that such a work, if produced, would exceed the bulk of Kelly's Post -Office Directory, but the discussion, though of no practical value, gave -me a closer view of the idiosyncrasies of the company. The lover of -Sophocles liked loud, jostling bars, reeking with the odour of crowded -and violent humanity, where you truly fought for your drink; where no -voice could be heard unless your ear were close upon it, and where you -had barely room to crook your elbow: such bars as you find in the poorer -quarters, as seem, at first acquaintance, to be under the management of -the Sicilian Players. The electrician preferred a nice quiet house where -he could sit down—no doubt to think about Bergsonism. The musical -police-sergeant had no preferences in the matter of company or -surroundings; the quality of the beer was all his concern. The -horsey-looking man liked those large, well-kept, isolated suburban bars -where you might find but two or three customers with whom you could have -what he called a Good Old Talk About Things.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p><p>At closing time I discovered that the little merry-faced fellow was the -host; indeed, I had placed him in some such capacity, for his face might -have been preserved on canvas as the universal type of the jovial -landlord.</p> - -<p>"You're staying here, aren't you? Come through to my room for a bit. -Unless you want to get off to bye-bye."</p> - -<p>I didn't want to get off to bye-bye. I wanted to know more of this -comic-opera inn. So I followed him to his private room, and I found it -walled with books—real books, such as were loved by Lamb—<i>The Anatomy -of Melancholy</i>, Walker's <i>Original</i>, <i>The Compleat Angler,</i> an -Elizabethan Song-book, Descartes, Leopardi, Montaigne, and so on. The -piano in the corner bore an open volume of Mozart's Sonatas; and this -extraordinary Boniface, having "put the bar up," seated himself and -played Mozart and Beethoven and Schumann and Isolde's "Liebestod," and -morsels of Grieg, until three o'clock in the morning, when I climbed to -my room.</p> - -<p>On the way he showed me the King Charles room and the delightful -eighteenth-century mezzotints on the stair-case walls, and the secret -way from the first floor to the yard. From that night<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> our friendship -began. I stayed there the following day and for two days more, and -pulled his books about, and roamed over the many rooms, and met the -company of my first night in the bar.</p> - -<p>I was charmed by the air of intimacy that belongs to that bar, deriving, -I think, from the sweet nature of the host. You may stay at popular inns -or resplendent hotels, and make casual acquaintance in the lounges, and -exchange talk; but it is impossible, in the huge cubic space of such -establishments, to come near to other spirits. You do not meet a man in -town and say: "What? You've stayed at the 'Royal York'? I've stayed -there too," and straightway develop a friendship. But you can meet a -stranger, and say: "What? You know 'The Chequers?' D'you know Jimmy?" -and you fall at once to discussing old Jimmy, the landlord, and you -admit the stranger to the secrets of your heart.</p> - -<p>Jimmy—I hope he won't mind my writing him down as Jimmy; you have only -to look at him to know that he cannot be James or Jim—Jimmy radiates -cheer; whether in his own inn or in other people's. Among his -well-smoked furniture and walls men talk freely and listen keenly. There -is no obscene reticence, no cunning reserve. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>Unpleasant men would be -miserable at "The Chequers"; they would seek some other biding-place -where self-revelation is kept within diplomatic bounds.</p> - -<p>Believe me, "The Mermaid" was not the end of the great taverns. What -things have we seen done and heard said at the bar of "The Chequers." -What famous company has gathered there on Sunday evenings, artists, -literary men, musicians, philosophers, entering into fierce argument and -vociferous agreement with the local stalwarts. In these troubled times -people are mentally slack. They readily accept mob opinion, to save -themselves the added strain of thinking; and eagerly adopt the attitude -that it is idle to concern oneself with intellectual affairs in these -days; so that there is now no sensible talk to be had in bar or club. -Wherefore, it is a relief to possess one place—and that an inn—where -one may be sure of finding company that will join with relish in serious -talk and put their whole lives in a jest. Such delight and refreshment -do I find at this inn, that scarcely a Saturday passes but I board the -car and glide to "The Chequers" in—well, just beyond the London Postal District.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p> - -<h2>RELICS</h2> - -<p>The turning-out of the crowded drawers of an old bureau or cabinet is -universally known as the prime pastime of the faded spinster; a pastime -in which the starved spirit may exercise itself among delicious -melancholies and wraiths of spent joys. Well, I am not yet faded, and I -am not a spinster; but I have fallen to the lure of "turning out." I -have lately "turned out"—not the musty souvenirs of fifty years ago, -love, fifty years ago, but the still warm fragments of <span class="smaller">A.D.</span> 1912.</p> - -<p>The other day, while searching irately in my fumed-oak rolltop desk for -a publisher's royalty statement which he had not sent me, I opened at -random a little devil of a drawer who conceals his being in the -right-hand lower corner. And lo! out stepped, airily, that well-polished -gentleman, Mr. Nineteen-Twelve. My anger over the missing accounts was -at once soothed. In certain chapters of this book I have harked back to -the years before 1914, and it may be that you conceive me as a doddering -old bore: a praiser of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> times past. But what would you have? You have -not surely the face to ask me to praise times present?</p> - -<p>So I took a long look at Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and went thoroughly -through him. My first discovery was an old menu. My second discovery was -a bunch of menus. You won't get exasperated—will you?—if I print here -the menu of a one-and-sixpenny dinner, eaten on a hot June night in -Greek Street:—</p> - -<p class="center">Hors-d'œuvre varié.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Consommé Henri IV.<br /> -Crème Parmentier.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Saumon bouillé.<br /> -Concombre.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Filet mignon.<br /> -Pommes sautés.<br /> -Haricots verts.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Poulet en casserole.<br /> -Salade saison.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Fraises aux liqueurs.<br /> -Glace vanille.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Fromages.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Dessert.<br /> -· ·<br /> -Café.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>I dug my hand deeper into the pockets of Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and menu -after menu and relic after relic came forth. There was a menu of a Lotus -Club supper. I'm hanged if I can remember the Lotus Club, or its idea, -or even its situation. There were old hotel bills, which, thrown -together in groups, might suggest itineraries for some very good walking -tours; for there were bills from Stratford-on-Avon and Goring-on-Thames -and High Wycombe and Oxford and Banbury; there were bills from Bognor -and Arundel and Chichester and the Isle of Wight; there were bills from -Tintern and Chepstow and Dean Forest and Monmouth; there were bills from -Kendal and Appleby and Windermere and Grasmere. Another clutching hand -gave up old menus from the Great Western, the North-Western, and the -Great Northern dining-cars. In a corner I found an assortment of fancy -cigarette tins and boxes, specially designed and engraved for various -restaurants and hotels. Now the cigarette tins are no more, and the -boxes are made from flimsy card and are none too well printed, and many -of the restaurants from which they came have disappeared, these -elaborate productions are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>treasurable, not only as echoes of the good -days, but as <i>objets d'art</i>.</p> - -<p>Further search produced a flat aluminium match-case containing twelve -vestas, and crested "With compliments—Criterion Restaurant"; and a tin -waistcoat-pocket match box, also full, containing, on the inside of the -lid, a charming glimpse of the interior of the Boulogne Restaurant—a -man and woman at table, in 1912 fashions, lifting champagne glasses and -crying, through a loop that begins and finishes at their mouths: -"<i>Evviva noi</i>!" The sight of this streak of matches spurred me to -further prospecting, and the pan, after careful washing, yielded boxes -from Paris, with gaudy dancing-girls on either cover; insanely decorated -boxes from Italy, filled with red-stemmed, yellow-headed matches; plain -boxes from Monaco; and from Ostend, very choice boxes, decorated inside -and outside with examples of the Old Masters.</p> - -<p>Packets of toothpicks, with wrappers advertising various English and -Continental bars, came from another corner, where they were buried under -a torn page from an old <i>Tatler</i>, showing, in various phases, Portraits -of a Well-Dressed Man.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> This species being now extinct, I hope the plate -of that page has been destroyed, so that my relic may possess some -value. Two tickets for the Phyllis Court enclosure at Henley lay -neglected under a printed invitation to have "A Breath of Fresh Air with -the 'Old Mitre' Christmas Club, Leaving the 'Old Mitre' by four-horse -brake at 10.30, to arrive at 'The Green Man,' Richmond, at 12 noon. A -Whacking Good Dinner and a Meat Tea. Dancing on the Lawn at Dusk." An -old programme of the Covent Garden Grand Season recalled that -magnificent band of Wagnerians, Knupfer, Dittmar, van Rooy and the rest. -Where are they now—these bull-voiced Rhinelanders? Within the programme -covers I found a ticket for admission to the fight between young Ahearn -and Carpentier which was abandoned; a printed card inviting me to a -Tango Tea at the Savoy; a request for the pleasure of my company at the -Empress Rooms to dance to the costive cacophony of a Pink Bavarian Band; -and half a dozen newspaper cuttings, with scare-heads and cross-heads, -dealing at much length with Debussy's tennis-court ballet, "Jeux," -danced by Nijinsky, Schollar and Karsavina. Turning over one of these -cuttings, I found a long report of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> burning of a pillar-box by a -Suffragette, and a list of recent window-breakings.</p> - -<p>A little packet at the bottom caught my eye, and I dived for it. It was -a small box of liqueur chocolates from Rumpelmayer's—unopened, old boy! -unopened. I am a devil for sweets, and I was beginning to tear the -wrapper, when conscience bade me pause. Ought I to eat them? Ought I not -first to ascertain whether there were not others whose need was greater -than mine? Think of the number of girls who would give their last -hairpin for but one of the luscious little umber cubes. What right had I -to liqueur chocolates of 1912 vintage? Conscience won. The packet is -still unopened; and if, within seven days from the appearance of these -lines, the ugliest girl in the W.A.A.C. will let me have her name and -address and photograph, it will be sent to her. Failing receipt of any -application by the specified date, I shall feel free to eat 'em.</p> - -<p>Two others relics yet remained. One was a small gold coin, none too -common, even in those days, and now, I believe, obsolete. I fancy we -called it a half-sovereign, or half-quid, or half-thick-un or -half-Jimmy, according to the current jargon of our set. The other was a -throw-away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> leaflet, advertising on one side the programme of a London -County Council concert in Embankment Gardens, and on the other the cheap -Sunday and Monday excursions arranged by the National Sunday League.</p> - -<p>This was the most heart-breaking of all the mementoes. How many Sundays, -that otherwise might have been masses of melancholy, were shattered into -glowing fragments by these inexpensive peeps at the heart of England? I -can remember now these fugitive glimpses, with every little incident of -each glad journey; and I am impelled to breathe a prayer from the soul -for the well-being of the Sunday League, since it was only by the -enterprise of the kindly N.S.L. that I was able to see my own country. -Here I give you the list of trips, with return fares, advertised on the -leaflet before me:—</p> - -<table summary="trips, with return fares"> - <tr> - <td></td> - <td>s. d.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Brighton</td> - <td>2 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Hastings</td> - <td>3 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Eastbourne</td> - <td>4 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Sheffield</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Leeds</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Weston-super-Mare </td> - <td>4 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Tintern Abbey</td> - <td>4 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Stratford-on-Avon</td> - <td>4 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Warwick</td> - <td>4 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Bournemouth</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Isle of Wight</td> - <td>6 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>Cardiff</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Shrewsbury</td> - <td>4 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Margate</td> - <td>3 6</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Herne Bay</td> - <td>3 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Cromer</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">Durham</td> - <td>6 0</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class="left">York</td> - <td>5 0</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p>Sacred name of an Albert Stanley!</p> - -<p>Uttering this ejaculation, I restored my treasures to their hiding-place -with the fumbling fingers of the dew-eyed, ruminative spinster, and -locked the drawer against careless hands; hoping that, some day, some -keen collector of the rare and curious might come along and offer me a -blank cheque for this collection of Nineteen-Twelviana. Looking it over, -I consider it a very good Lot—well-assorted; each item in mint state -and scarce; one or two, indeed, unique.</p> - -<p>What offers?</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ATTABOY!</h2> - -<p>On a bright afternoon of last summer I suffered all the thrills -described in the sestet of Keats's sonnet, "On First Looking Into -Chapman's Homer." I discovered a new art-form. I felt like that watcher -of the skies. I stood upon a peak in Darien. But I was not silent, for -what I had discovered was the game of baseball, and—incidentally—the -soul of America.</p> - -<p>That match between the American Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse -of a pastime that has captivated a continent. I can well understand its -appeal to the modern temperament; for it is more than a game: it is a -sequence of studied, grotesque poses through which the players express -all the zest of the New World. You should see Williams at the top of his -pitch. You should see the sweep of Mimms' shoulders at the finish of a -wild strike. You should see Fuller preparing to catch. What profusion of -vorticist rhythms! With what ease and finish they were executed! I know -of no keener pleasure than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> that of watching a man do something that he -fully knows how to do—whether it be Caruso singing, Maskelyne juggling, -Balfour making an impromptu speech, a doctor tending a patient, Brangwyn -etching, an engineer at his engines, Pachmann at the piano, Inman at the -billiard-table, a captain bringing his ship alongside, roadmen driving -in a staple, or Swanneck Rube pitching. Oh, pretty to watch, sir, pretty -to watch! No hesitation here; no feeling his way towards a method; no -fortuitous hair's-breadth triumph over the nice difficulty; but cold -facility and swift, clear answers to the multiple demands of the -situation. Oh, attaboy, Rube!</p> - -<p>I was received in the Army's dressing-room by Mimms, their captain, who -said he was mighty glad to know me, and would put me wise to anything in -the game that had me beat. The whole thing had me beat. I was down and -out before the Umpire had cried his first "Play Ball!" which he -delivered as one syllable: "Pl'barl!" The players in their hybrid -costumes—a mixture of the jockey and the fencer—the catcher in his gas -mask and stomach protector and gigantic mitt, and the wild grace of the -artists as they "warmed up," threw me into ecstasy, and the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> new thrill -that I had sought so long surged over my jaded spirit.</p> - -<p>Then the game began, and the rooting began. In past years I attended -various Test Matches and a few football matches in Northern mining -districts, when the players came in for a certain amount of barracking; -but these affairs were church services compared with the furious abuse -and hazing handed to any unfortunate who made an error. Such screams and -eldritch noises I never thought to hear from the human voice. No -Englishman could achieve them: his vocal cords are not made that way. -There was, for example, an explosive, reverberating "<i>Ah-h-h-h-h-h</i>!" -which I now practise in my backgarden in order to scare the sparrows -from my early peas. But my attempts are no more like the real thing than -Australian Burgundy is like wine. I can achieve the noise, but some -subtle quality is ever lacking.</p> - -<p>The whole scene was barbaric pandemonium: the grandstand bristling with -megaphones and tossing arms and dancing hats and demoniac faces offered -a superb subject for an artist of the Nevinson or Nash school. A Chinese -theatre is but a faint reflection of a ball game. I had never imagined -that this hard, shell-covered, business<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> people could break into such a -debauch of frenzy. You should have heard the sedate Admiral Sims, when -the Navy made a homer, with his: "Attaboy! Oh, attaway to play ball! -Zaaaa. Zaaa. Zaaa!" and when his men made a wild throw he sure handed -them theirs.</p> - -<p>Here are a few of the phrases hurled at offending players:—</p> - -<p>"Aw, well, well, well, well, well!"</p> - -<p>"Ah, you pikers, where was you raised?"</p> - -<p>"Hey, pitcher, is this the ball game or a corner-lot game?"</p> - -<p>"Say, bo, you <i>can</i> play ball—maybe."</p> - -<p>"Hey, catcher, quit the diamond, and lemme li'l brudder teach yeh."</p> - -<p>"Say, who's that at bat? What's the good of sending in a dead man?"</p> - -<p>"Aw, dear, dear, dear! Gimme some barb' wire. I wanter knit a sweater -for the barnacle on second."</p> - -<p>"Oh, watch this, watch this! He's a bad actor. Kill the bad actor!"</p> - -<p>"More ivory—more ivory! Oh, boy, I love every bone in yer head."</p> - -<p>"Get a step-ladder to it. Take orf that pitcher. He's pitching over a -plate in heaven."</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span></p><p>"Aw, you quitter. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bonehead, bonehead, bonehead. <i>Ahhhh.</i>"</p> - -<p>"Now show 'em where you live, boy. Let's have something with a bit of -class to it."</p> - -<p>"Give him the axe, the axe, the axe."</p> - -<p>"What's the matter with the man on third? 'Tisn't bed-time yet."</p> - -<p>An everlasting chorus, with reference to the scoring-board, chanted like -an anthem:—</p> - -<p>"Go-ing up! Go-ing up! Go-ing up!"</p> - -<p>At the end of the game—the Navy's game all the way—the fury and -abandon increased, though, during the game, it had not seemed possible -that it could. But it did. And when, limp and worn, I shuffled out to -Walham Green, and Mimms asked me whether the game had got me, I could -only reply, with a diminuendo:—</p> - -<p>"Well, well, well, well, well!"</p> - -<p class="space-above">I shall never again be able to watch with interest a cricket or football -match; it would be like a tortoise-race after the ball game. Such speed -and fury, such physical and mental zest, I had never before seen brought -to the playing of a simple game. It might have been a life-or-death -struggle, and the balls might have been<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> Mills bombs, and the bats -rifles. If the Americans at play give any idea of their qualities at -battle, then Heaven help the fresh guys who are up against them.</p> - -<p>When the boys had dressed I joined up with a party of them, and we -adjourned to the Clarendon; where one of us, a Chicago journalist, not -trusting the delicacy of the bartender's hand, obtained permission to -sling his own; and a Bronx was passed to each of us for necessary -action. This made a fitting kick to the ball game, for a Bronx is -concentrated essence of baseball; full of quips and tricks and sharp -twists of flavour; inducing that gr-r-rand and ger-l-lorious feelin'. It -took only two of these to make the journalist break into song, and he -gave us some excellent numbers of American marching-songs. He started -with the American "Tipperary," sung to an air of Sullivan's:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Hail, hail, the gang's all here!</div> -<div class="i1">What th'ell do we care?</div> -<div class="i1">What th'ell do we care?</div> -<div>Hail, hail, the gang's all here,</div> -<div>So what th'ell do we care now?</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Then "Happy-land":—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>I wish I was in Happy-land,</div> -<div class="i1">Where rivers of beer abound;</div> -<div><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>With sloe-gin rickies hanging on the trees</div> -<div class="i1">And high-balls rolling on the ground.</div> -<div class="i4">What?</div> -<div class="i1">High-balls rolling on the ground?</div> -<div class="i4">Sure!</div> -<div class="i1">High-balls rolling on the ground.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Then the anthem of the "dry" States:—</p> - -<div class="center"><div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> -<div>Nobody knows how dry I am,</div> -<div class="i2">How dry I am,</div> -<div class="i2">How dry I am,</div> -<div>You don't know how dry I am,</div> -<div class="i2">How dry I am,</div> -<div class="i2">How dry I am.</div> -<div>Nobody knows how dry I am,</div> -<div>And nobody cares a damn.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>After this service of song, brief, bright and brotherly, we moved slowly -Eastward, and in Kensington Gardens I learned something about college -yells. For suddenly, without warning, one of the party bent forward, -with arms outstretched, and yelled the following at a pensive sheep:—</p> - -<p>"Alle ge reu, ge reu, ge reu. War-who-bar-za. Hi ix, hi ip; hi capica, -doma nica. Hong pong. Lita pica. Halleka, balakah, ba."</p> - -<p>At first I conjectured that the Bronx was running its course, but when -he had spoken his piece the rest of the gang let themselves go, and I -then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> understood that we were having a round of college yells. -Respectable strangers might have mistaken the performance for the war -march of the priests, or the entry of the gladiators, or the battle-song -of the hairy Ainus; for such monstrous perversions of sense and sound -surely have never before disturbed the serenity of the Gardens.</p> - -<p>I understand that the essential of a good college yell is that it be -utterly meaningless, barbaric and larynx-racking. It should seem to be -the work of some philologist who had suddenly gone mad under the strain -of his studies and had attempted to converse with an aborigine. I think -Augustana's yell pretty well fills that condition:—</p> - -<p>"Rocky-eye, rocky-eye. Zip, zum, zie. Shingerata, shingerata, bim, bum, -bie. Zip-zum, zip-zum, rah, rah, rah. Karaborra, karaborra, -Augus-<i>tana</i>."</p> - -<p>At the conclusion of this choral service we caught a bus to Piccadilly -Circus and I left them at the Tube entrance singing "Bob up serenely," -and went home to dream of the ball game and of millions of fans -screaming abstruse advice into my deaf ear.</p> - -<p>Oh, attaboy!</p> - -<p class="center">* * * * *</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p><p>Since that merry meeting I have had many opportunities of getting next -to the American Army and Navy, and hearing their views of us and British -views of them, and the experience has done me a lot of good. Until then, -the only Americans I had met were the leisured, over-moneyed tourists, -mostly disagreeable, and, as I have found since, by no means -representative of their country. You know them. They came to England in -the autumn, and stayed at opulent hotels, and made a lot of noise around -ancient shrines, and sent local prices sky-rocketing wherever they -stayed, and threw their weight and fifty-dollar tips about, and "Say'd" -and "My'd" and "Gee'd" up and down the Strand; that kind of American. -These people did their country a lot of harm, because I and thousands of -other people received them as Americans and disliked them; just as -wealthy trippers to and from other countries leave bad impressions of -their people. I made up my mind on America from my meetings with these -parvenus. I had forgotten that the best and typical people of a country -are the hard-working, stay-at-home people, whose labours just enable -them to feed and clothe their children and provide nothing for gadding -about to other<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> countries. To-day, the solid middle-class people of -England and America are meeting and mixing, and all political history is -washed out by the waters of social intercourse between them. High -officials and diplomats are for ever telling one another over official -luncheon tables that the friendship of this and that nation is sealed, -but such remarks are valueless until the common people of either country -have met and made their own decision; and the cost of living does not -permit such meetings. Thus we have wars and unholy alliances. If only -the common people of all countries could meet and exchange views in a -common language, without the prejudice inspired by Press and politician, -international amity would be for ever established, as Anglo-American -amity is now established by the free-and-easy meeting of hard-working, -middle-class Americans and the same social type of Englishman.</p> - -<p>After meeting hundreds of Americans of a class and position similar to -my own, I have changed all my views of America. We have everything in -common and nothing to differ about. I don't care a damn on whose side -was right or wrong in 1773. I have taken the boys round London. I have -played their games. I have<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> eaten their food. I have talked their slang -and taught them mine. They have eaten my food, and we have sported -joyfully together, and discussed music and books and theatres, and -amiably amused ourselves at the expense of each other's social -institutions and ceremonies. As they are guests in England, I have -played host, and, among other entertainment that I have offered, I have -been able to give them what they most needed; namely, evenings and odd -hours in real middle-class English homes, where they could see an -Englishwoman pour out tea and see an English baby put to bed. I found -that they were sick of the solemn "functions" arranged for their -entertainment. They didn't want high-brow receptions or musical -entertainments in Mayfair. They preferred the spontaneous entertainment -arising from a casual encounter in the street, as by asking the way to -this or that place, leading to an invitation to a suburban home and a -suburban meal. From such a visit they get an insight into our ways, our -ideals, our outlook on life, better than they ever could from a Pall -Mall club or a Government official's drawing-room. They get the real -thing, which is something to write home about. In the "arranged" affairs -they are<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> "guests"; in the others, they are treated with the rude, -haphazard fellowship which we extend to friends.</p> - -<p>In these troubled days there is little room for the exercise of the -graces of life. Our ears are deaf to the gentle voice of urbanity. The -delicacies of intercourse have been trodden underfoot, and lie withered -and broken. Even the quality of mercy has been standardized and put into -uniform. Throughout the world to-day, everything is organized, and to -organize a beautiful movement or emotion is to brutalize it: while -lubricating its mechanism you ossify its soul. Thank God, there is still -left a little spontaneity. Human impulse may be bruised and broken, but -it is a fiery thing, and hard to train to harness or to destroy; and I -can assure you that the Americans are grateful for it wherever it finds -expression.</p> - -<p>One evening, just before curfew—it was night according to the -Government, but the sky said quite clearly that it was evening—I was -standing at my favourite coffee-stall near King's Cross, eating -hard-boiled eggs and drinking introspective coffee, and chatting with -the boss on the joy of life.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span></p><p>"Met any of the Americans?" I asked, anxious to get his opinion of -them.</p> - -<p>"Met any? Crowds of 'em."</p> - -<p>"What do you think of 'em?"</p> - -<p>"Oh, I dunno. Bit of a change after all these other foreigners. -'Strewth—d'yeh know, when a Cockney like yesself comes along to the -stall I feel like dropping down dead—'strewth, I do. Never get none o' -the usual 'appy crowd along now," he went on, mopping the sloppy -counter.</p> - -<p>"But how do the Americans strike you?"</p> - -<p>"The Americans? Well...." He folded his arms, which with him is the -flourish preliminary to an oration. Here is his opinion, which I think -sums up the American character pretty aptly:—</p> - -<p>"The Americans. Well, nice, likeable fellers I've alwis found 'em. Don't -'alf make for my stall when they come out o' the station. Like it -better, they say, than Lady Dardy Dinkum's canteen inside. And eat.... -Fair clear me out every time they come. I get on with 'em top-'ole. -There's something about 'em—I dunno what, some kind o' kiddishness—but -not that exac'ly—a sort of——"</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p><p>"Fresh delight in simple things," I suggested, drawing on my Pelmanized -Bartlett.</p> - -<p>"That's jest it. Mad about London, y'know. Why, I bin in London yers an' -yers, and it don't worry me. Wants to know which is the oldest building -in London, and where that bloke put 'is cloak in the mud for some Queen, -an' where Cromwell was executed, and 'ow many generals is buried in -Westminster Abbey. 'Ow should I know anything about Westminster Abbey? I -live in Camden Town. I got me business t'attend to.</p> - -<p>"There's a friend of mine, Mr. 'Ankin, the gentleman what takes the -tickets at Baker Street—'e met two of 'em t'other day. Navy boys—from -the country, I should think. D'you know, they spent the 'ole mornin' -ridin' up and down the movin' staircase—yerce, and would 'ave spent the -afternoon, too, on'y one of 'em tried to run up the staircase what was -comin' down an'.... Well, I dessay it was good practice for 'em, but, as -Mr. 'Ankin told 'em, it's safer to monkey with a U-boat than with a -movin' staircase. And anyway, 'e'll be out of hospital before 'is ship's -moved.</p> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span></p><p>"Yerce, I like the Americans—what I've seen of 'em. No swank about -'em, y'know—officers an' men, just alike, all pals together. -Confidence. That's what they got. Talks to yeh matey-like—know what I -mean—man to man kind o' thing. Funny the way they looks at England, -though. I s'pose they seen it on the map and it looked smallish. One -feller come round the stall t'other night, an' 'e'd got two days' leave -an' thought 'e could do Stratford-on-Avon, Salisbury Cathedral, Chester, -Brighton, Edinburgh Castle, an' the spot o' blood where that American -gel, Marry Queener Scots, murdered 'er boy—all in two days. 'Ustle, I -believe they calls it over there. So I told 'im to start 'ustlin' right -away, else, when 'e got back, 'e'd find 'imself waiting on the carpet, -waiting for the good old C.B. Likeable boys, though. 'Ere's to 'em. No, -I'll 'ave a ginger-ale. I don't drink me own coffee—not when I'm -drinkin' anyone's 'ealth, like. Well, <i>Attaboy</i>, as they say over there."</p> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> - -<h2>ADVERTISEMENTS</h2> - -<hr /> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">BY SIMEON STRUNSKY</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">PROFESSOR LATIMER'S PROGRESS</p> - -<p>The "sentimental journey" of a middle-aged American scholar upon whose -soul the war has come down heavily, and who seeks a cure—and an -answer—in a walking trip up-State.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"The war has produced no other book like 'Professor Latimer's -Progress,' with its sanative masculine blend of deep feeling, fluid -intelligence, and heart-easing mirth, its people a joyous company. -It is a spiritual adventure, the adventure of the American soul in -search of a new foothold in a tottering world. We have so many -books of documents, of animus, or argument; what a refreshment to -fall in, for once in a way, with a book of that quiet creative -humor whose 'other name' is wisdom."—<i>The Nation.</i> (<i>Illustrated</i>, -$1.40 <i>net</i>.)</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">LITTLE JOURNEYS TOWARDS PARIS (1914/1918)</p> - -<p>By <span class="smcap">W. Hohenzollern</span>, translated and adapted for untutored minds by <span class="smcap">Simeon -Strunsky</span>. <i>75 cents net.</i></p> - -<blockquote><p>"If only the Germans could be supplied with translations of this -exquisite satire they would die laughing at the grisly joke on -themselves. Not only funny, it is a final reductio ad absurdum of -the Hun philosophy."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">BELSHAZZAR COURT<br />Or Village Life in New York City</p> - -<p>Graceful essays about the average citizen in his apartment house, in the -street, at the theater, the baseball park, with his children, etc. $1.35 -<i>net</i>.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">BY DOROTHY CANFIELD</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HOME FIRES IN FRANCE</p> - -<p>True stories of war-time France. <i>$1.50 net</i>.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"The finest work of fiction produced by the war."—<i>Prof. Wm. Lyon -Phelps.</i></p> - -<p>"Of war books, 'Home Fires in France' is most likely to endure for -its truth, its humanity and its literary value."—<i>The Nation.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">UNDERSTOOD BETSY</p> - -<p>Illustrated by <span class="smcap">Ada C. Williamson</span>. $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"That rare thing, a good book for girls."—<i>N. Y. Evening Post.</i></p> - -<p>Older readers will find its humor delightful. A book that "holds -laughter, some excitement and all outdoors."</p></blockquote> - -<p><i>Two Novels of American Life</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE BENT TWIG</p> - -<p>The story of a lovely open-eyed, open-minded American girl, her family, -and her romance. $1.75 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<p class="center">THE SQUIRREL-CAGE</p> - -<p>An unusual personal and real story of American family life. $1.75 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<p><i>Two Volumes of Notable Short Stories</i></p> - -<p class="center">HILLSBORO PEOPLE</p> - -<p>Stories of Vermont people, with occasional Vermont Verse by <span class="smcap">Sarah N. -Cleghorn</span>. $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<p class="center">THE REAL MOTIVE</p> - -<p>Stories with varied backgrounds unified by the underlying humanity of -all the characters. $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /><span class="smcap">Publishers</span> <span class="s3"> </span> <span class="smcap">New York</span></p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">BY MARGARET WIDDEMER</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="uline"><i>NOVELS</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE WISHING-RING MAN</p> - -<p>A romance of a New England summer colony. $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"Margaret Widdemer, who says she likes happy stories, proves it by -writing them for other people to read.... The book is full of -charm, amusing incident, and gay conversation; and the interest in -the situation holds to the last half page."—<i>N.Y. Evening Post.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG ONCE</p> - -<p>Miss Widdemer's new novel is the story of youth's romance as it came to -the five girls and three boys of a happy American family. $1.50 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<p class="uline"><i>POETRY</i></p> - -<p class="center">FACTORIES, AND OTHER POEMS</p> - -<p>Second printing. $1.30 <i>net</i>.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"An art which speaks ever so eloquently for itself.... Splendid -effort both in thought and execution, and ranks with the cry of the -children as voiced by Mrs. Browning."—<i>San Francisco Chronicle.</i></p> - -<p>"Among the foremost of American versifiers when she touches the -great passionate realities of life."—<i>Living Age.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE</p> - -<p>A collection of the poems that have appeared since "Factories." $1.25 -<i>net</i>.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">BOOKS ON MUSICIANS</p> - -<p class="center">BY ROMAIN ROLLAND</p> - -<blockquote><p>Author of "Jean-Christophe," and called by <span class="smcap">W. J. Henderson</span> "The -most interesting of living critics of Music and Musicians."</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">SOME MUSICIANS OF FORMER DAYS</p> - -<blockquote><p>Translated from the fourth French edition by <span class="smcap">Mary Blaiklock</span>. $1.50 -net.</p></blockquote> - -<p>The Place of Music in General History; The Beginning of Opera; The First -Opera Played in Paris; Notes on Lully, and shorter but vivid papers on -Gluck, Grétry, and Mozart.</p> - -<blockquote><p>" ... One of the greatest of living musical scholars. He is also -the most interesting of contemporaneous writers.... Written with -brilliant scholarship, with critical insight and with flashes of -human sympathy and humor.... Every lover of music should hasten to -give himself the pleasure of a persual of this delightful volume -which radiates learning, keen judgment and sympathetic -humor."—<i>New York Sun.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY</p> - -<blockquote><p>Translated from the fifth French edition by <i>Mary Blaiklock</i>. With -an Introduction by <span class="smcap">Claude Landi</span>. 324 pp. $1.50 net.</p></blockquote> - -<p>Berlioz's stormy career and music, Wagner's "Siegfried" and "Tristan," -Saint-Saëns, Vincent D'Indy, Hugo Wolf, Debussy's "Pelléas and -Mélisande," "The Musical Movement in Paris," and an absorbing paper on -the Concert-Music of Richard Strauss, etc.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"May surely be read with profit by the musically uneducated and -educated."—<i>Philip Hale in the Boston Herald.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">HANDEL</p> - -<blockquote><p>Translation and Introduction by <span class="smcap">A. Eaglefield Hull</span>. With musical -extracts, four unusual illustrations, and an index. 210 pp. $1.50 -net.</p> - -<p>" ... Written with enthusiasm, but with judgment as well. The story -of Handel's life is told simply, but with feeling and alacrity of -phrase ... will repay reading...."—<i>Springfield Republican.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">BEETHOVEN</p> - -<blockquote><p>Translated by <span class="smcap">A. Eaglefield Hull</span>. $1.50 net.</p></blockquote> - -<p>This is, perhaps, the most famous of the non-fiction musical books by -the author of "Jean-Christophe." The translator has added to Mr. -Rolland's famous monograph, in which he treats of Beethoven both as -musician and hero, so much interesting additional material that this -volume almost doubles the size of the original.</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center"><i>The Third Edition</i>, <i>Revised and Enlarged</i>, <i>of</i></p> - -<p class="center">THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE</p> - -<p class="center">COMPILED BY</p> - -<p class="center">BURTON E. STEVENSON</p> - -<p>has been revised from end to end—590 poems have been added, pages -renumbered, author, title, and first line indices, and the biographical -matter corrected, etc., etc.</p> - -<p>The hundreds of letters from readers and poets suggesting additions or -corrections as well as the columns of reviews of the first edition have -been considered. Poets who were chary of lending their support to an -unknown venture have now generously permitted the use of their work.</p> - -<p>This edition includes the "new" poets such as <span class="smcap">Masefield</span>, <span class="smcap">Chesterton</span>, -<span class="smcap">Frost</span>, <span class="smcap">Rupert Brooke</span>, <span class="smcap">de la Mare</span>, <span class="smcap">Ralph Hodgson</span>, etc.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"A collection so complete and distinguished that it is difficult to -find any other approaching it sufficiently for comparison."—<i>New -York Times Book Review</i> on the first edition.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center"><i>India Paper, 4,096 pages</i></p> - -<p><i>Cloth, one volume, $12.50 net.</i><br /> -<i>Cloth, two volumes, $16.00 net.</i><br /> -<i>Half Morocco, one volume, $15.00 net.</i><br /> -<i>Half Morocco, two volumes, $25.00 net.</i></p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">PATIENCE WORTH: A PSYCHIC MYSTERY</p> - -<p class="center">By <span class="smcap">Caspar S. Yost</span>. Fourth Printing. $1.50 net.</p> - -<p>In July, 1913, Mrs. John H. Curran, of St. Louis, and a friend were -amusing themselves with a ouija board, when out of a clear sky came:</p> - -<blockquote><p>"Many moons ago, I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name."</p></blockquote> - -<p>Thus began an intimate association with "Patience Worth," that still -continues, and a series of communications that in intellectual vigor and -literary quality are virtually without precedent.</p> - -<p>An account of the whole matter and the shorter communications make up -the present volume.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"Sensitive, witty, keenly metaphysical. Whoever or whatever she is, -she meets the test that human beings meet."—<span class="smcap">Francis Hackett</span> in -<i>The New Republic</i>.</p> - -<p>"A mind, whosoever it may be, that has retained abundant vigor, -distinction and individual savor."—<span class="smcap">Lawrence Gilman</span> in <i>The North -American Review</i>.</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center"><i>BOOKS BY PATIENCE WORTH</i></p> - -<p class="center">Edited by <span class="smcap">Caspar S. Yost</span></p> - -<p class="center">THE SORRY TALE</p> - -<p class="center">A Story of the Time of Christ. 644 pages. $1.90 net.</p> - -<p>A story filled with action. It brings into close view the historical -characters of Tiberius, the Herods, Pilate, Peter, and particularly and -dominantly, Jesus Christ.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"This second book increases the marvel of the first. A wonderful, a -beautiful and a noble book."—<i>New York Times Book Review.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">HOPE TRUEBLOOD</p> - -<p class="center">A novel of Mid-Victorian England. $1.50 net.</p> - -<blockquote><p>"A work approximating absolute genius."—<i>New York Tribune.</i></p></blockquote> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">WRITERS OF THE DAY</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p>Critical estimates of the works of famous authors and accounts of their -lives, written while they are yet alive, and done, not by literary -hacks, but by fellow-craftsmen of a younger generation distinguished for -imaginative work.</p> - -<p><i>Each volume with portrait and bibliography, 75 cents net.</i></p> - -<blockquote><p>"There is nothing perfunctory about these little volumes.... All -are terse, breezy, comprehensive, authoritative."—<i>New York Times -Review.</i></p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">ANATOLE FRANCE<br /> -By W. L. GEORGE<br /> -<br /> -H. G. WELLS<br /> -By J. D. BERESFORD<br /> -<br /> -ARNOLD BENNETT<br /> -By F. J. H. DARTON<br /> -<br /> -RUDYARD KIPLING<br /> -By JOHN PALMER<br /> -<br /> -HENRY JAMES<br /> -By REBECCA WEST<br /> -<br /> -JOSEPH CONRAD<br /> -By HUGH WALPOLE<br /> -<br /> -THOMAS HARDY<br /> -By HUGH CHILD<br /> -<br /> -JOHN GALSWORTHY<br /> -By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH<br /> -<br /> -MRS. HUMPHRY WARD<br /> -By STEPHEN GWYNN</p> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br /><span class="smcap">Publishers</span> <span class="s3"> </span> <span class="smcap">New York</span></p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p> - -<div class="box2"> -<p class="center">BY CLAYTON HAMILTON</p> - -<p class="center">Each book fully indexed. 12mo. $1.75 net.</p> - -<p class="center">PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT</p> - -<p>Building a Play Backward; Surprise in the Drama; The Troublesome Last -Act; High Comedy in America; The George M. Cohan School of Playrights; -Middle Class Opinion; Criticism and Creation in the Drama; Dramatic -Talent and Theatrical Talent; The Plays of Lord Dunsany; Romance and -Realism in the Drama; Scenic Settings in America; The New Stagecraft; -The Non-Commercial Drama; A Democratic Insurrection in the Theatre; A -Scheme for a Stock Company; What's Wrong with the American Drama, etc., etc.</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Bookman</i>: " ... Mr. Hamilton and -Mr. Archer—like Lessing and like Sarcey—have a broad background -of culture.... They never stray into the dusty paths of -pedantry.... Consistently interesting because it has the support of -knowledge and the savour of individuality."</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">STUDIES IN STAGECRAFT</p> - -<p>The New Art of Making Plays, The Pictorial Stage, The Modern Art of -Stage Direction, A Plea for a New Type of Play, The Undramatic Drama, -The Supernatural Drama, The Irish National Theatre, Where to Begin a -Play, A New Defense of Melodrama, The Art of the Moving-Picture Play, -The One-Act Play in America, Organizing an Audience, etc., etc.</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>Nation</i>: "Information, alertness, coolness, sanity and the command -of a forceful and pointed English.... A good book, in spite of all -deductions."</p> - -<p><i>Prof. Archibald Henderson, in The Drama</i>: "University excellent in -quality.... Continually interesting in presentation ... uniform for -high excellence and elevated standards...."</p></blockquote> - -<p class="center">THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE</p> - -<p>What is a Play?—The Psychology of Theatre Audiences.—The Actor and the -Dramatist.—Stage Conventions in Modern Times.—The Four Leading Types -of Drama.—The Modern Social Drama, and Other Principles of Dramatic -Criticism.—The <i>Public</i> and the Dramatist.—Dramatic Art and the -Theatre Business.—Dramatic Literature and Theatric -Journalism.—Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays.—Themes in the Theatre.—The -Function of Imagination, etc., etc.</p> - -<blockquote><p><i>Bookman</i>: "Presents coherently a more substantial body of idea on -the subject than perhaps elsewhere accessible."</p> - -<p><i>Boston Transcript</i>: "At every moment of his discussion he has a -firm grasp upon every phase of the subject."</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center">HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY<br />PUBLISHERS <span class="s3"> </span> NEW YORK</p></div> - -<hr /> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="pg" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 53155-h.htm or 53155-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/1/5/53155">http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/1/5/53155</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. -</p> - -<h2>START: FULL LICENSE<br /> -<br /> -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE<br /> -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK</h2> - -<p>To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license.</p> - -<h3>Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works</h3> - -<p>1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8.</p> - -<p>1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.</p> - -<p>1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others.</p> - -<p>1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States.</p> - -<p>1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:</p> - -<p>1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed:</p> - -<blockquote><p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United - States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost - no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use - it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with - this eBook or online - at <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you - are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws - of the country where you are located before using this - ebook.</p></blockquote> - -<p>1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</p> - -<p>1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work.</p> - -<p>1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.</p> - -<p>1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License.</p> - -<p>1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.</p> - -<p>1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.</p> - -<p>1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that</p> - -<ul> -<li>You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation."</li> - -<li>You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works.</li> - -<li>You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work.</li> - -<li>You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.</li> -</ul> - -<p>1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.</p> - -<p>1.F.</p> - -<p>1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment.</p> - -<p>1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE.</p> - -<p>1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem.</p> - -<p>1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.</p> - -<p>1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions.</p> - -<p>1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. </p> - -<h3>Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm</h3> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life.</p> - -<p>Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org.</p> - -<h3>Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation</h3> - -<p>The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.</p> - -<p>The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact</p> - -<p>For additional contact information:</p> - -<p> Dr. Gregory B. Newby<br /> - Chief Executive and Director<br /> - gbnewby@pglaf.org</p> - -<h3>Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation</h3> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS.</p> - -<p>The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/donate">www.gutenberg.org/donate</a>.</p> - -<p>While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate.</p> - -<p>International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.</p> - -<p>Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate</p> - -<h3>Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.</h3> - -<p>Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support.</p> - -<p>Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition.</p> - -<p>Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org</p> - -<p>This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.</p> - -</body> -</html> - diff --git a/old/53155-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/53155-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index af20a27..0000000 --- a/old/53155-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/53155-h/images/logo.jpg b/old/53155-h/images/logo.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a4abe17..0000000 --- a/old/53155-h/images/logo.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/53155.txt b/old/53155.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 1d82f19..0000000 --- a/old/53155.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,4776 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Out and About London, by Thomas Burke - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Out and About London - - -Author: Thomas Burke - - - -Release Date: September 28, 2016 [eBook #53155] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON*** - - -E-text prepared by deaurider, Martin Pettit, and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made -available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org) - - - -Note: Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - https://archive.org/details/outaboutlondon00burk - - - - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - - - * * * * * * - -_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ - -NIGHTS IN LONDON - - -"Hundreds of books have been written about London, but few are as well -worth reading as this."--_London Times._ - -"Thomas Burke writes of London as Kipling wrote of India."--_Baltimore -Sun._ - -"A real book."--_New York Sun._ - -4th printing, $1.50 - -HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY -PUBLISHERS NEW YORK - - * * * * * * - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - -by - -THOMAS BURKE - -Author of "Limehouse Nights" -and "Nights In London" - - - - - - - -[Illustration: Logo] - -New York -Henry Holt and Company -1919 - -Copyright, 1919 -by -Henry Holt and Company - - - - - 1916 - - _Lady, the world is old, and we are young. - The world is old to-night and full of tears - And tumbled dreams, and all its songs are sung, - And echoes rise no more from the tombed years. - Lady, the world is old, but we are young._ - - _Once only shines the mellow moon so fair; - One speck of Time is Love's Eternity. - Once only can the stars so light your hair, - And the night make your eyes my psaltery. - Lady, the world is old. Love still is young._ - - _Let us take hand ere the swift moment end. - My heart is but a lamp to light your way. - My song your counsellor, my love your friend, - Your soul the shrine whereat I kneel and pray. - Lady, the world grows old. Let us be young._ - - _T. B._ - - - - -CONTENTS - - PAGE -ROUND THE TOWN, 1917 3 - -BACK TO DOCKLAND 30 - -CHINATOWN REVISITED 40 - -SOHO CARRIES ON 58 - -OUT OF TOWN 69 - -IN SEARCH OF A SHOW 82 - -VODKA AND VAGABONDS 89 - -THE KIDS' MAN 113 - -CROWDED HOURS 123 - -SATURDAY NIGHT 134 - -RENDEZVOUS 140 - -TRAGEDY AND COCKNEYISM 148 - -MINE EASE AT MINE INN 155 - -RELICS 168 - -ATTABOY! 176 - - - - -OUT AND ABOUT LONDON - - - - -ROUND THE TOWN, 1917 - - -It was a lucid, rain-washed morning--one of those rare mornings when -London seems to laugh before you, disclosing her random beauties. In -every park the trees were hung with adolescent tresses, green and white -and yellow, and the sky was busy with scudding clouds. Even the solemn -bricks had caught something of the sudden colour of the day, and London -seemed to toss in its long, winter sleep and to take the heavy breaths -of the awakening sluggard. - -I turned from my Fleet Street window to my desk, took my pen, found it -in good working order, and put it down. I was hoping that it would be -damaged, or that the ink had run out; I like to deceive myself with some -excuse for not working. But on this occasion none presented itself save -the call of the streets and the happy aspect of things, and I made these -serve my purpose. With me it is always thus. Let there come the first -sharp taste of Spring in the February air and I am demoralized. Away -with labour. The sun is shining. The sky is bland. There are seven -hundred square miles of London in which Adventure is shyly lurking for -those who will seek her out. What about it? So I drew five pounds from -the cash-box, stuffed it into my waistcoat-pocket, and let myself loose, -feeling, as the phrase goes, that I didn't care if it snowed. And as I -walked, there rose in my heart a silly song, with no words and no tune; -or, if any words, something like--how does it go?-- - - - Boys and girls, come out to play-- - Hi-ti-hiddley-hi-ti-hay! - - -But the fool is bent upon a twig. I found the boys preoccupied and the -girls unwearied in war-work. One good comrade of the highways and byways -had married a wife; and therefore he could not come. Another had bought -a yoke of oxen, and must needs go and prove them--as though they were a -problem of Euclid. Luckily, I ran against Caradoc Evans, disguised in a -false beard, in order to escape the fury of the London Welshmen, and -looking like the advance agent of a hard winter. Seeing my silly, -hark-halloa face, he inquired what was up. I explained that I was out -for a day's amusement--the first chance I had had since 1914. -Whereupon, he ran me into a little place round the corner, and bought me -an illicit drink at an hour when the minatory finger of Lord d'Abernon -was still wagging; and informed me with tears in the voice, and many a -"boy bach," and "old bloke," and "indeed," that this was the Year of -Grace 1917, and that London was not amusing. - -It was not until the third drink that I discovered how right he was. As -a born Cockney, living close to London every minute of my life, I had -not noticed the slow change in the face and soul of London. I had long -been superficially aware that something was gone from the streets and -the skies, but the feeling was no more definite than that of the gourmet -whose palate hints that the cook has left something--it cannot say -what--out of the soup. It was left for the swift perception of the -immigrant Welshman to apprise me fully of the truth. But once it was -presented to me, I saw it too clearly. My search for amusement, I knew -then, was at an end, and what had promised to be an empurpling of the -town seemed like to degenerate into a spelling-bee. Of course, I might -have gone back to my desk; but the Spring had worked too far into my -system to allow even a moment's consideration of that alternative. -There remained nothing to do but to wander, and to pray for a glimpse of -that tempestuous petticoat of youth that deserted us in 1914. It was a -forlorn pursuit: I knew I would never touch its hem. - -I never did. I wandered all day with Caradoc bach, and we did this and -we did that, while I strove to shake from my shoulders the bundle of -dismay that seemed fastened there. The young men having gone to war, the -streets were filled with middle-aged women of thirty, in short skirts, -trying to attract the aged satyrs, the only men that remained, by -pretending to be little girls. At mid-day, that hour when, throughout -London, you may hear the symphony of swinging gates and creaking bolts, -we paid hurried calls at the old haunts. They were either empty or -filled with new faces. Rule's, in Maiden Lane, was deserted. The Bodega -had been besieged by, and had capitulated to, the Colonial army. -Mooney's had become the property of the London Irish. The vociferous -rehearsal crowds had decamped from the Bedford Head, and left it to -strayed and gloomy Service men, who cared nothing for its traditions; -and Yates's Wine Lodge, the home of the blue-chinned laddies looking -for a shop, was filled with women war-workers. - -Truly, London was no more herself. The word carried no more the magical -quality with which of old time it was endued. She was no more the -intellectual centre, or the political centre, or the social centre of -the world. She was not even an English city, like Leeds or Sheffield or -Birmingham. She was a large city with a population of nondescript -millions. - -This I realized more clearly when, a week or so after our tour, an -American, whom I was conducting round London, asked me to show him -something typically English. I couldn't. I tried to take him to an -English restaurant. There was none. Even the old chop-houses, under -prevailing restrictions, were offering manufactured food like spaghetti -and disguised offal. I turned to the programmes of the music-halls. Here -again England was frozen out. There were comedians from France, jugglers -from Japan, conjurers from China, trick-cyclists from Belgium, -weight-lifters from Australia, buck-dancers from America, and ... -England, with all thy faults I love thee still; but do take a bit of -interest in yourself. A stranger, arriving from overseas, might suppose -that the war was over, and that London was in the hands of the -conquerors. This impression he might receive from a single glance at our -streets. The Strand at the moment of writing is blocked for pedestrian -traffic by Australians and New Zealanders; Piccadilly Circus belongs to -the Belgians and the French; and the Americans possess Belgravia. -Canadian cafeterias are doing good business round Westminster; French -coffee-bars are thriving in the Shaftesbury Avenue district; Belgian -restaurants occupy the waste corners around Kingsway; and two more -Chinese restaurants have lately been opened in the West End. - -The common Cockney seemed to walk almost fearfully about his invaded -streets, hardly daring to be himself or talk his own language. Apart -from the foreign tongues, which always did annoy his ear, foul language -now assailed him from every side: "no bon," "napoo," "gadget," -"camouflaged," "buckshee," "bonza," and so on. This is not good slang. -Good slang has a quality of its own--a bite and spit and fine -expressiveness which do not belong to dictionary words. That is its -justification--the supplying of a lacking shade of expression, not the -supplanting of adequate forms. The old Cockney slang did justify -itself, but this modern Army rubbish, besides being uncouth, is utterly -meaningless, and might have been invented by some idiot schoolboy: -probably was. - -After some search, we found a quiet corner in a bar where the perverted -stuff was not being talked, and there we gave ourselves to recalling the -little joyous jags that marked the progress of other years. I was -dipping the other night into a favourite bedside book of mine--here I'd -like to put in a dozen pages on bedside books--a Social Calendar for -1909; a rich reliquary for the future historian; and was shocked on -noting the number of simple festivals which are now ruled out of our -monotonous year. Do you remember them? Chestnut Sunday at Bushey -Park--City and Suburban--Derby and Oaks--Ascot Sunday at Maidenhead--Cup -Tie at the Crystal Palace--Spring week-ends by the sea--evening taxi -jaunts to Richmond and Staines--gay nights at the Empire and the -adjoining bars--supper after the theatre--moonlight trips in the summer -season down river to the Nore--polo at Ranelagh--cricket at Lord's and -the Oval--the Boat Race--Henley week--Earl's Court and White City -Exhibitions, where one could finish the evening on the wiggle-woggle, as -a final flicker. And now they have just delivered the most brutal blow -of all. Having robbed us of our motors and our cheap railways, they have -stolen away from the working-man his (and my) chiefest delight--the -beanfeast wagonette. (How I would have loved to take Henry James on one -of these jags.) The disappearance of this delight of the summer season -is, at the moment, so acute and so personal a grief, that I cannot trust -myself to speak of it. I must withdraw, and leave F. W. Thomas (of _The -Star_) to deliver the valedictory address:-- - - - This spells the death of yet another old English institution. One - cannot go beanfeasting in traps and pony carts. There would be no - room for the cornet man, and without his distended cheeks and - dreadful harmony the picture would be incomplete. - - That was a great day when we met at the works in the morning, all - in our best clothes and squeaky boots, all sporting large - buttonholes and cigars of the rifle-range brand. - - With the yellow stone jars safely stowed under the seat and the - cornet man perched at the driver's left hand, we started off. - Usually the route lay through Shoreditch and Hackney to Clapton, - and so to the green fields of the Lea Bridge Road. - - For the first hour of the journey we were quiet, early-morningish, - and a little reminiscent, recalling the glories of past beanfeasts. - The cornet man tootled half-heartedly, with many rests and much - licking of dry lips. Not until the "Greyhound" was passed did he - get well under way, and then there was no stopping him. His face - got redder and redder as he blasted his way through his repertoire; - a feast of music covering the years between "Champagne Charlie" and - Marie Lloyd. - - At the end of the drive the horses were put up and baited, and the - merry beanfeasters spread themselves and their melody through the - glades of Loughton or High Beech, with cold roast beef and pickles - at Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge or the "Robin Hood." - - And who does not remember that joyful homeward journey, with the - cornet man, now ruddier than the cherry, blaring "Little Brown Jug" - from well-oiled lungs, while behind him the revellers sang "As your - hair grows whiter," and an accordion in the back seats bleated "The - Miner's Dream." - - As Herbert Campbell used to sing in the old days:-- - - - Then up I came with my little lot, - And the air went blue for miles; - The trees all shook and the copper took his hook, - And down came all the tiles. - - - That was the real tit-bit of the beanfeast, the rollicking homeward - drive, with the brake embowered in branches of trees raped from the - Forest, and lit by swaying Chinese lanterns and great bunches of - dahlias bought from the cottagers of Loughton, and Chingford. - - One always took home a bunch of flowers from a beanfeast, and maybe - a pint of shrimps for the missus, and some acorns for the - youngsters, or a gilded mug. - - The defunct brake had other uses than this. Sometimes it took - parties of solemn old ladies in beads and black to an orgy of tea - and cake in the grounds of the "Leg of Mutton" at Chadwell Heath. - These were prim affairs. Mothers' Meeting from the little red - church round the corner. They had no cornet, and the smiling parson - rode in the seat assigned to Orpheus. - - The youngsters, too, had their days--riotous days shrill with song - and gay with coloured streamers, air-balloons and trumpets. How - merrily they would bellow that they were "all a-going to Rye House, - so 'Ip-ip-ip-ooray!'" though their destination was Burnham Beeches - or Brickett Wood. - - Rubber-neck parties of American tourists occasionally saw the - sights of London from brakes and wagonettes; solemn people, who for - all the signs of holiday they displayed might have been driving to - Tyburn Tree. - - But the real reason for the brake was the beanfeast with its - attendant cornet man and its rubicund driver with his white topper - and the little boys running behind and stealing rides on the back - step. Until the war is over Epping will know them no more, and the - nightingales of Fairlop Plain will sing to the moon undisturbed. - - -We lunched at the "Trocadero," where a friend on the staff put us in the -right place and put before us the right food and the right wine. The -rooms looked like a Service mess-room. Every guest looked like every -other guest. Men and women alike had fallen victims to that devastating -plague of uniforms, and all charm, all significance, had been -obliterated by this murrain of khaki and blue serge. The suave curves of -feminine dress had been ironed out by the harsh hand of the -standardizer, and in their place we saw only the sullen lines of the -Land Girls' rig making juts and points with the rigidities of the -Women's Army Corps and Women's Police garb. The Vorticists ought to be -thankful for the war. It accomplished in one stroke what, in 1914, they -were feverishly attempting: it turned life into a wilderness of angles. - -"Clothes," said Carlyle, "gave us individuality, distinction, social -polity." He ought to see us now. Standard Bread, Standard Suits, -Standard This, and Standard That.... The very word "standard" must now -be so universally loathed by men who have managed to conceal from the -controllers some remnants of character, that I wonder the _Evening -Standard_ manages to retain its popularity without a change of title. If -standardizing really helped matters, nobody could complain; but can -Dogberry aver that it does? Does it not, in practice, rather hinder than -help? In railway carriages the bottlefed citizen girds against all this -aimless interference with his daily life; but his protests are no more -considerable than that of the victim in the melodrama: "Have a care, Sir -Aubrey, have a care. You have ruined me sister. You have murdered me -wife. You have cast me aged father into prison. You have seduced me son. -You have sold up me home. But beware, Sir Aubrey, beware. I am a man of -quick temper. _Don't go too far._" - -When we looked round the Trocadero, and we remembered the bright -company it once held, and then noted the tart aspect of the place under -organization, we felt a little unwell, and dared to wonder why -efficiency cannot walk with beauty and the zeal for victory go with -grace and gladness. Had the marriage, we wondered, been tried by the -authorities, and the parties proved to be so palpably incompatible? Or -was it that they had been for ever sundered by some one who mistakes -dullness for earnestness and ugliness for strength? - -However, the rich scents of well-cooked offal, mingled with those of -wine and Oriental tobacco, soothed us a little, and we achieved a brief -loosening of the prevailing restraint, and allowed our thoughts to run -without the chain. Our friend had dug from the depths of the cellar a -fragrant Southern wine, true liquid sunshine, tinct with the odour of -green seas; a rare bottle to which I made a chant-royal on the back of -the menu, and, luckily for you, mislaid the thing, or it would be -printed here. We talked freely; not brilliantly, but with just that -touch of piquancy that stimulants and narcotics, rightly used, bestow -upon the brain. - -We lounged over coffee and liqueurs, and then strolled up the Avenue -and called at the establishment of "Mr. Francis Downman," that most -discriminating and charming of wine-merchants--discriminating because he -has given his life to the study of wines; charming because, away from -his wine-cellars and in his true name, he is a novelist whose books, so -lit with sparkle and espieglerie, have carried fair breezes into many a -dusty heart. If you have ever visited that old Queen Anne House in Dean -Street and glanced at "Mr. Downman's" Bulletins, you will realize at -once that here is no ordinary vendor of wines. Wine to "Mr. Downman" is -a serious matter. Opening a bottle is an exquisite ceremony; drinking is -a sacrament. I once lunched with "Mr. Downman" in his cool Dutch kitchen -"over the shop," and each course was lovingly cooked and served by his -own hands, with suitable wines and liqueurs. It was a lesson in simple -and courtly living. How pleasant the homes of England might be if our -housewives would pay a little attention to correct kitchen and table -amenities. "Mr. Downman" would be a public benefactor if he would open a -School of Kitchen Wisdom where the little suburban wife might sit at his -feet and learn of him. Yes, I know that there are many schools of -cookery and housewifery, but these places are managed by people who -only know how to cook. "Mr. Downman" would bring to the task all those -little elegancies which make a dinner not merely satisfactory, but a -refinement of joy. Feeding, like all functions of the human body, is a -vulgar business anyway, but here is a man who can raise it to the -dignity of a rite. - -Further, he has shown us, in those "Bulletins," how to turn advertising -into one of the minor arts. Perhaps of all the enormities which the -nineteenth century perpetrated in its efforts to make life unbearable, -the greatest was the debasing of trade. In the eighteenth century trade -was a serene occupation, as you may see by glancing at the files of the -old _Gentleman's Magazine_, _Mirror_, _Spectator_, where announcements -of goods and merchandise were made in fine flowing English. -Advertisement was then a matter of grace, of flourish and address; for -people had leisure in which to receive gradual impressions. The -merchants of that day did not scream at you; they sat with you over the -fire, and held you in pleasant converse, sometimes, in their talk, -throwing off some persiflage or apothegm that has become immortal. There -was a Mr. George Farr, a grocer, _circa_ 1750, who issued some -excellent trade tickets from the "Beehive and Three Sugar Loaves"; -little cards, embellished with dainty woodcuts that bring to mind an -Elzevir bookplate; the pictures a sheer joy to look upon, the prose a -delicate pomp of words that delights the ear. Then there were the trade -cards of the Goldsmiths' and Silversmiths' Company of the eighteenth -century, each one the production of a true artist (Hogarth did several), -as well as the tobacco advertisements of the same period. In the latter -case, not only were the cards works of art, but poetry was wooed and won -for the cause. Near the old Surrey Theatre lived one John Mackey, who -sang the praise of his wares in rhyme and issued playbills purporting to -announce new tragedies under such titles as _My Snuff-Box_, _The Indian -Weed_, _The True Friend, or Arrivals from Havannah_, _The Last Pinch_, -and so on. The cabinet-makers of the eighteenth century also found time -to indite delicious morsels of prose and prepare quaint and harmonious -pictures for the delight of their patrons. Mr. Chippendale and Mr. -Heppelwhite were most industrious in this direction, and the Society of -Upholsterers and Cabinet Makers issued, in 1765, a work now very much -sought after: _The Cabinet and Chair Makers' Real Friend and Companion_. - -But then, snorting and hustling like a provincial alderman, in came the -nineteenth century, with its gospel of Speed-up; and the result was that -fair fields and stately streets scream harshly in your ears at every -turn:-- - - - DRINK BINGO. - It is the Best. - - - EAT DINKYDUX. - You'll hate it at First. - - -This sort of thing continued for many decades, when, happily, its -potency became attenuated, and some genius discovered that people were -not always responsive to screams; that, after all, the old way was -better. - -Thus literature returned and linked arms once again with trade. Partly, -the circularizing dodge was responsible for this, since, in the -circular, the bald statement was hardly good enough. It was found that -subtle means must be employed if you are striving to catch a man's -attention at the breakfast-table, when sleep still crawls like a slug -about the brain and temper is uncertain. Nothing is so riling to the -educated person as to have ungrammatical circulars dropped in his -letter-box. Their effect is that he heartily detests the article -advertised, not because he has tried it and found it wanting, but -because of the split infinitive or the infirm phrase. So the whoop and -the yell gave place to the full-flowered essay sprigged with the -considered phrase. And to my mind the best of all contemporary efforts -in this direction are "Mr. Downman's" "Bulletins," of which I have a -complete set. Here a fastidious pen is delightfully employed; and not -the pen only, but the taste of the book-lover. Indeed, they are lovable -productions, having all the gracious response to the eye and the touch -of Mr. Arthur Humphreys' anthologies of seventeenth-century poetry. -Everything--format, type, paper, and Elian style--breathes an air of -serendipity. - -The first part of each "Bulletin" consists of a number of essays on -questions pertaining to wine and wine-drinking; the second half is a -catalogue of "Mr. Downman's" wines and their current prices, with -specimen labels, which are such gentle harmonies of line and colour that -one is tempted to start collecting them. "Mr. Downman" opens his -addresses in the grand manner:-- - - - _My Lords, Reverend Fathers, Ladies and Gentlemen._ - - -And if you love your Elia, then you must read "Mr. Downman" on Decanters -and Decanting, On Corkscrews, On How to Drink Wine, On Bottling, On -Patriotism and Wines, On the Suiting of Food to Wine, On Wines at -Picnics. His sharp-flavoured prose, full of sly nuances and coquettish -conceits, has all the tone of the best claret. Hear him on salads:-- - - - This is the time of salads. And a good salad means good oil. It - also means good vinegar, or a fresh and juicy lime or lemon. Now - the Almighty has given us better tools for salad-making than any - wooden fork or spoon. In conditions of homely intimacy, a - salad-maker, when all is ready, will wash his hands well and long - as the moment approaches for serving the bowl. He will shun common - or perfumed soaps, and will use nothing but a soap made from olive - oil. Having dried his hands perfectly on a warm, clean towel, he - will finally whisk the cup of dressing into homogeneity, will pour - its contents over the salad, and will immediately proceed to wring - the leaves in the liquid as a washerwoman wrings clothes in soapy - water. (How horrid!) In doing this he will spoil the appearance of - come of the leaves, but he will have a salad fit for the gods. - - -After sampling a noble Madeira in his cellar cool, in William and Mary -Yard, we resumed our crawl, and in the black evening made a tour of -other of the old places. At the Cafe de l'Europe, Mr. Jacobs, leader of -the band, played for us a few old waltzes and morceaux reeking of the -spirit of 1912; but even he did not handle the fiddle, or seem to care -to handle it, in his old happy manner. Like the rest of us, I suppose, -he felt that it wasn't worth while; it didn't matter. We called at the -"Gambrinus," now owned by a Belgian; at the old "Sceptre," for a -coupon's worth of boiled beef; and so to the Cafe Royal. - -Here we received a touch or two from the old times. War has killed many -lovely things, but, though it maim and break, it cannot wholly kill the -things of the spirit, and in the "Royal" we found that art was still a -living thing; ideas were still being discussed as though they mattered. -Epstein and Augustus John, both in uniform, were there, and Austin -Harrison had his usual group of poets. It was reassuring to see the old -domino-playing Frenchmen, who seem part of the fixtures of the place, in -their accustomed corner. The girls seemed to have packed away their -affrighting futurist gowns, and were arrayed more soberly. That night -they seemed to be more like human creatures, and less like deliberate -Bohemians. - -I am not overfond of the Cafe Royal, but it is one of the West End shows -which visitors feel they must see; and when any provincial visitors -wonder: "Why is the Cafe Royal?" I have one answer for them: "Henri -Murger." - -It is certain that, but for Murger, there would be no Chelsea and no -Cafe Royal. That man has a lot to answer for. I doubt if any one man -(I'm not including kings) has wrought so much havoc in young lives. He -meant to warn youth of danger; he actually drove youth towards it. - -Any discussion which seeks to name the most dangerous book in the world -is certain to bring mention of Rousseau's _Confessions_, of Paine's _Age -of Reason_, of Artzibashef's _Sanine_, of Baudelaire's _Fleurs du Mal_, -and other works of subversive tendency. The one book which has really -done more harm to young people than any other is seldom remembered in -this connection. That book is _Scenes de la Vie de Boheme_; and it is -dangerous, not that it contains a line of obscenity or blasphemy, not -that it teaches evil as higher than good, but because it founded a cult -and taught young people how to ruin their lives. Bohemianism has, of -course, existed since the world began; rebels have always been; but it -remained for Murger to find a name for it and make a cult of it. - -The dangers of this cult to young people lay not in its being an evil -cult, but in its being perhaps as fine a cult as any of the world's -great creeds: the cult of human sympathy and generosity. The Bohemian -makes friends with all kinds and all creeds--sinners and saints, rich -and poor; he cares nothing so long as they be kindly. And there lay the -danger, for the blood of youth, freed from all restraint, was certain to -overdo it. It became a cult of excess. Murger died, but he left behind -him a very bitter legacy to the coming generation. As that legacy passed -through the years it gathered various adhesions--such as Wilde's "In -order to be an artist it is first necessary to ruin one's health," and -Flaubert's "Nothing succeeds like excess"; so that very soon art -colonies became things discredited, unpleasant to the nostrils of the -righteous. - -Murger himself saw the life very clearly, for he described it as "Vie -gai et terrible"; and he takes no pains to present to us only the -lighter, warmer side of it. He shows us everything; yet, so diabolical -is his manner, that, even after passing the tragedy of the closing -pages, the book and the life it pictures call to every one of us with -song in his blood and the spirit of April in his heart. - -It first appeared as a feuilleton in a Paris daily, and Murger, with -characteristic insouciance, wrote his instalments only a few hours -before the time when they were due for the printer; and when he was -stumped for material, he invented a little story. Hence that singularly -beautiful tale, slammed into the middle of the book--the Story of -Francine's Muff--which forms the opening scene of Puccini's opera -founded on the novel. The book has neither balance nor cohesion, and in -this it catches its note from its theme. It is a cinematographic -succession of scenes, tender and passionate and gay; swift and hectic. -He invented and employed the picture-palace manner in literature before -the picture-palace was even conceived. The very style is feverish, and -from it one visualizes the desperately merry Bohemian slaving with pen -and paper in his high garret, and whipping his flagging brain with -fierce stimulant, while the printer's boy sits on the doorstep. - -It stands alone. There is no book in the literature of the world quite -like it. It is the challenge of youth and beauty to the world; and if -we--grown wise and weary in the struggle--find a note of ferocity and -extravagance in the challenge, then let us judge with understanding, and -remember that it is a case of the fine and the weak against the brutal -and the ignorant. Murger's voice is the voice of protesting youth. He is -illogical; so is youth. He is furious; so is youth. He is heroic; so is -youth. He is half-mad with indignation and half-mad with the joy of -living; so is youth. It is by its very waywardness and disregard of -values that the book captures us. - -There is no other book in which the spirit of Paris breathes more -easily. Here we have the essential Paris, just as in Thomas Dekker we -have the essential London. Poets, novelists and essayists have set -themselves again and again to ensnare the elusive Paris between the -covers of a book; but Murger alone--though he writes of Paris in -1830--has succeeded. Those who have never been to Paris should first -read his book; then, when they do go, they will experience the sense of -coming back to some known place. - -It was this insidious book that first tempted youth to escape from a -hidebound world; showed it the way out--a way beset by delightful -hazards. It offered to all the golden boys and girls a new Utopia, and -they were fain to visit it. That it was a false world troubled them not -at all. The green glass, the delirious midnight hours, and the pale -loveliness of Mimi and Musette were, perhaps, shackles as binding and as -fearful as those of Convention. But anything to escape from the irk and -thrall of their narrow realities; so away they went, and the end of the -story is written in the archives of the Morgue. - -After seventy years, however, the middle way has been found. There are -few tragedies to-day in the Quartier Latin, and very little gaiety or -kindliness; none of the old adventurous spirit. Things are going too -well in the studio-world these days. Chelsea and Montmartre have been -invaded by the American dilettanti, whose lives are one long struggle to -be Bohemians on a thousand a year. If, however, there be those who -regard this state of things as an improvement on the old, then let it be -remembered that this way was only found after Murger had wrecked his own -life and the lives of those who followed so gaily the unkind path down -which he led them. It is a pitiful catalogue; the more pitiful since so -many of the young dead are anonymous--the young men who might, had they -lived, have given the world so much of beauty, but who were unable to -pull up short of the precipice. Some of them, of course, we know: Gerard -de Nerval, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Ernest Dowson; and -their London monument is the Cafe Royal. - - * * * * * - -At half-past nine all fun ceased, but we had picked up a bunch from -Fleet Street, one of whom was taking home two bottles of whisky. So we -moved to "another place," and ordered black coffees which drank -tolerably well--after some swift surreptitious business with a -corkscrew. Later, we strolled across Oxford Street to what remained of -the German Quarter. We visited various coffee-bars, where our genial -comrade with the bottles again did his duty; did it beautifully, did it -splendidly, did it with Vine Street at his ear. And in a grey street off -Tottenham Court Road we found a poor man's cabaret. In the back room of -a coffee-bar an entertainment was proceeding. Two schonk boys, in straw -hats, were at a piano, assisted by an anaemic girl and a real coal-black -coon, who gave us the essential rag-times of the South. The place was -packed with the finest collection of cosmopolitan toughs I had ever seen -in one room. The air, physical and moral, was hardly breathable, and as -the boys were spoiling for a row, one misinterpreted glance would have -brought trouble--and lots of it. At different tables, voices were raised -in altercation, when not in lusty song, and the general impression the -place gave me was that it was a squalid, dirty model of the old -Criterion Long Bar. All the meaner, more desperate citizens of the -law-breaking world were gathered here; and, though we had broken a few -by-laws ourselves that night, we were not anxious to be led into any -more shattering of the Doraic tables. So at midnight we adjourned to -"another place," and drank dry gingers until three o'clock in the -morning. Then, to a Turkish Bath, and so to bed; not very merry, but as -cheered in the spirit as the humble, useless citizen is allowed to be in -a miserable, hole-and-corner way in war-time. - -It had been a sorry experience, this round of visits, in 1917, to -quarters last seen in 1914; and it made me curious to know how other -familiar nooks had received the wanton assault of kings. In the -haphazard sketches that follow I have tried to catch the external -war-time atmosphere of a few of the old haunts, so far as a poor -reporter may. Later, perhaps, a better hand than mine will discover for -us the essential soul of London under siege; and these rough notes may -be of some service, since all remembrance of that time was blown away -from most minds by the maroons of Armistice Day. - - - - -BACK TO DOCKLAND - - -From my earliest perceiving moments, docks and railway stations have -been, for me, the most romantic spots of the city in which I was born -and bred. Quays and wharves, cuts, basins, reaches, steel tracks and -passenger trains, and all that belonged to the life of the waterside and -the railway, spoke to me of illimitable travel and distant, therefore -desirable, things. - -This feeling I share, I suppose, with millions of other men and children -who have been reared in coast cities, and whose minds respond to the -large invitations offered by sooty smoke-stacks or the dim outline of a -station roof. And if these things pierced the complacence of one's days -in the past, how much deeper and more significant their message in those -four dreadful years, when men fared forth in ships and trains to new -perils unimagined in the quieter years. - -That apart, I see docks and railway stations not in their economic or -historic aspect, but in the picturesque light, as, perhaps, the most -emphatic glory of London. For London's major architectural beauties I -care little. Abbeys, cathedrals, old churches, museums, leave me cold; -the fine shudder about the shoulders I suffer most sharply before those -haphazard wizardries of brick and iron flung together by the exigencies -of modern commerce. Their fortuitous ugliness achieves a new beauty. A -random eye-full of such townscapes may yield only an impression of -squalor, but many acres of squalor produce, by their very vastness, -something of the sublime. Belching chimneys, flaring furnaces, the -solemn smell of wet coal mingled with that of tar and bilge-water, and -the sight of brown sails and surly funnels and swinging cranes--in these -misshapen masses I find that delight that others receive from -contemplation of Salisbury Cathedral or a spire of Wren's. - -The docks of London lie closely in a group--Wapping, Shadwell, -Rotherhithe, Poplar, Limehouse, Isle of Dogs, Blackwall, and North -Woolwich, and each possesses its own fine-flavoured character. You may -know at once, without other evidence than that afforded by the sense of -smell, whether you stand in London Docks, Surrey Commercial Docks, West -India Docks, Millwall Docks, or Victoria and Albert Docks. To me, the -West and East India Docks are soaked in the bright odour and placid -clamour of the East, with something of feminine allure in the quality of -their appeal. Victoria and Albert Docks I find gaunt and colourless. -Surrey Commercial Docks remind me of some coarse merchant from the Royal -Exchange, stupidly vulgar in speech, clothes and character. - -The East and West India Docks I have treated elsewhere. Of the others, -the most exciting are Millwall and London Docks--though of the latter I -fear one must now speak in the past tense. Shadwell High Street and St. -George's, which border the London Docks, are no longer themselves. All -is now charged with gloom, broken only by the anaemic lights of a few -miserable mission-halls and coffee-bars for the use of Scandinavian -seamen. Awhile back, before this monstrous jest of war, there was a -certain raw gaiety about the place brought thither by these same blond -vikings; but, since the frenetic agitations of certain timorous people -against "all aliens"--as though none but an alien can be a spy--these -men are not now allowed to land from their boats, and Shadwell is the -poorer of a touch of colour. One might often meet them and fraternize -with them in the coffee-bars and beer-shops (there are few -"public-houses" in these streets), and hear their view of things. -Bearded giants they were, absurdly out of the picture in these tiny, -sawdusted rooms, against the hideous bedizenment of the London house of -refreshment. They would engage in rich, confused, interminable -conversations, using a language which, to the stranger, sounded like a -medley of hiccoughs and snorts; and there would be vehement arguments -and a large fanning of the breeze. In the upper rooms, on Saturday -evenings, one might have singing and dancing to a cracked piano and a -superannuated banjo, and there the girls of the quarter would appear, -and would do themselves well on seafarers' hospitality. - -But the free-and-easy atmosphere is gone. You enter any bar and are at -once under a cloud. Suspicion has been bred in all these docks men by -the cheap Press. The patriotic stevedores regard you as a disguised -alien. The landlord wonders whether you are one of those blasted -newspaper men or are from the Yard. The visitors to the bars are in -every case insipid; none of the ripe character that once lit such places -to sudden life. Abrupt acquaintance and casual conversation are not to -be had. The beer is filthy. The good Burton is gone, and in its place -you have a foul concoction which has not the mellowing effect of honest -British beer or the exhilarating effect of the light continental brews. -Shadwell High Street is now a dirty lane of poor lodging-houses, foul -courts, waste tracts of land, mission halls exuding a stale air of -diseased hospitality, and those nondescript establishments, ships' -chandlers, with their miscellanies of apparently useless lumber, stored -in such a heap that it would seem impossible to find any article -immediately required. In short, social life here is as it should be, -according to the unwearied in war-work. - -Still, there are some adorable morsels of domestic architecture to be -found up narrow alleys: old cottages and tumbling buildings, mellowed by -centuries of association with many weathers and with men and ships from -the green and golden seas that lie beyond the muddy waters of London -River; and these supply one touch of animation to the prevailing -moribundity. - -Very different are the Millwall Docks. Little material beauty here, but -something much better--good company, and plenty of it. The docks lie at -the south of the Isle of Dogs, amid a flat stretch of dreary warehouses -and factories, and you approach them by a long curving street of poor -cottages and "general" shops. The island is a place of harsh discords, -for Cubitt's works are established here, and the ring of hammers rises -above the roar of furnaces, and the vociferous life of the canals above -the scream of the siren and the moan of the hooter, and the concerted -voices of the island seem to cry the accumulated agony of the East End. -Great arc lights, suspended from above, when cargoes are being unloaded -by night, fling into sudden illumination or shadow the faces and figures -of the groups of workers as they stagger up the gangways with their -loads, and lend to the whole scene an air of theatrical illusion. In the -bars you find sweaty engineers and grimy stokers. Here is a prolific -field of character; mostly British, though a few Lascars may be found, -drinking solitary drinks or parading the streets with their customary -air of bewilderment. Here are nut-brown toilers of the sea, whose -complexions suggest that they have been trapped by that advertiser in -the popular Press who offers his toilet wares with the oracular -pronouncement that "Handsome Men Are Slightly Sunburnt." Here are men -who have circled the seven seas. Here, calm and taciturn, is a man who -knows Pitcairn Islanders to speak to; who produces from one pocket a -carved ivory god, presented to him by some native of Java, and from the -other Old Timothy's One-Horse Snip for the Big Race. - -Under the meagre daylight and the opulent shadows of these docks you may -drink beer and listen to casual chit-chat that carries you round the -world and into magical hidden places, and brings you back with a jerk to -the Isle of Dogs. - -"Yerce. Two bob a pound the 'Ome an' Colonial was arstin' the missus for -the stuff. I soon went round an' told 'em where they could put it. Well, -'sI was sayin', after we left Rangoon, we----" - -The land in this district consists, for the most part, of oozing marsh, -so that, when a gale sweeps from the mouth of the river, it reaches the -island with unexpended force. Then the sky seems to scream in harmony -with the rattling windows. Saloon signs swing grotesquely. The river -assumes a steely hue, heaving and rushing, sucking against staples, -wharves and barges, and rising in ineffectual splashes against the gates -of the docks, until you seek the public bar of the "Dog and -Thunderstorm" as a sanctuary. There, amid the babble of pewter and glass -and the punctuation of the cash register, you forget any London gale in -listening to stories of typhoons, cyclones, and other freaks of the -elements common to the Pacific and the meeting of the waters round the -Horn. - -Many hours have I squandered on the ridiculous bridge of the Isle of -Dogs, in sunlight or twilight, grey mist or velvet darkness, building my -dreams about the boats as they dropped downstream to the oceans of the -world and their ports with honey-syllabled names--Swatow, Rangoon, -Manila, Mozambique, Amoy--returning in normal times, with fantastic -cargoes of cornelian and jade, malachite and onyx, fine shapes of ivory -and coral, sharp spices of betel-nut and bhang, and a secret tin or two -of li-un--perhaps not returning at all. There I would stand, giving to -each ship some name and destination born of my own fancy, and endowing -it with a marvellous meed of adventure. - -It is an exciting experience for the landsman Cockney, strolling the -streets about the docks, to rub shoulders with other little Cockneys, in -blue serge and cotton scarves, who have accepted the non-committal -invitation offered by the funnel and the rigging over the walls of -Limehouse Basin. One remembers the story of the pale curate at the -church concert, at which one of the entertainers had sung a setting of -Kipling's "Rolling Down to Rio." "Ah, God!" he said, wringing his thin -hands, "that's what I often feel like.... Rolling down to Rio." And in -these streets one meets insignificant little men who have done it; who -have rolled down to Rio and gone back to Mandalay, and seen the dawn -come up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay. - -And I am proud to have nodding acquaintance with them. I am glad they -have drunk beer with me. I am glad I have clicked the chopsticks in -Limehouse Causeway with the yellow boys who can talk of Canton and Siam -and North Borneo and San Francisco. I am glad I have salaamed noble men -of India at the Asiatics' Home, and heard their stories of odourous -villages in the hills and of the seas about India, and of strange -islands which mere Cockneys pick out on the map with an uncertain -forefinger--Andamans, Nicobars, Solomons, and so forth. I am glad from -having met men who know Java as I know London; who know the best places -in Tokio for tea and the most picturesque spots in Formosa; who can -direct me to a good hotel in Singapore, should I ever go there, and who -know where Irish whisky can be bought in Sarawak. Why study guidebooks, -or consult with the omniscient Mr. Cook, when you may find about the -great ornamental gates of the docks of London natives of all corners of -the world who can provide you with a hundred exclusive tips which will -make smooth the traveller's way over every obstacle or untoward -incident? Indeed, why travel at all, when you may travel by proxy; when, -by hanging round the docks of London, you may travel, on the lips of -these men, through jungle, ocean, white town, palm grove, desert island, -and suffer all the sharp sensations of standing silent upon a peak in -Darien, the while you are taking heartening draughts of mild and bitter -in the saloon bar of the "Star of the East"? - - - - -CHINATOWN REVISITED - - -"Chinatown, my Chinatown, where the lights are low"--a fragment of a -music-hall song in praise of Chinatown which sticks ironically in my -memory. The fact that the lights are low applies at the time of writing -to the whole of London; and as for the word "Chinatown," which once -carried a perfume of delight, it is now empty of meaning save as -indicating a district of London where Chinamen live. To-day Limehouse is -without salt or savour; flat and unprofitable; and of all that it once -held of colour and mystery and the macabre, one must write in the past -tense. The missionaries and the Defence of the Realm Act have together -stripped it of all that furtive adventure that formerly held such lure -for the Westerner. - -It was in 1917 that I returned to it, after an absence of some years. In -that year I received an invitation that is rightly accepted as a -compliment: I was asked by Alvin Langdon Coburn to meet him at his -studio, and let him make from my face one of those ecstatic muddles of -grey and brown that have won for him the world's acknowledgment as the -first artist of the camera. Our meeting discovered a mutual enthusiasm -for Limehouse, and we arranged an excursion. There, we said to -ourselves, we shall find yet a taste of the pleasant things that the -world has forgotten: soft movement, solitude, little courtesies, as well -as wonderful things to buy. There we shall find sharp-flavoured things -to eat and drink, and josses and chaste carvings, and sharp knives. Oh, -and the tea, too--the little two-ounce packets of suey-sen at -sevenpence, that clothe the hour of five o'clock with delicate scents -and dreams. - -But the suey-sen was gone, done to death by the tea-rationing order. -Gone, too, was the bland iniquity of the place. Our saunter through -Pennyfields and the Causeway was a succession of disillusions. The -spirit of the commercial and controlled West breathed on us from every -side. All the dusky delicacies were suppressed. Dora had stepped in and -khyboshed the little haunts that once invited to curious amusement. -Opium, li-un, and other essences of the white poppy, secretly hoarded, -were fetching L30 per pound. The hop-hoads had got it in the neck, and -the odour of gin-seng floated seldom upon the air. The old tong feuds -had been suppressed by stern policing, and Thames Police Court had -become almost as suave and seemly as Rumpelmayer's. Even that joyous -festival, the Feast of the Lanterns, kept at the Chinese New Year, had -fallen out of the calendar. The Asiatic seamen had been made good by an -Order in Council. All for the best, no doubt; yet how one missed the -bizarre flame and salt of the old Quarter. - -We found Pennyfields and the Causeway uncomfortably crowded, for the -outward mail sailings were reduced, and the men who landed in the early -days had been unable to get away. So the streets and lodging-houses were -thronged with Arabs, Malays, Hindoos, South Sea Islanders, and East -Africans; and the Asiatics' Home for Destitute Orientals was having the -time of its life. Every cubicle in the hotel was engaged, and many -wanderers were sleeping where they could. Those with money paid for -their accommodation; for the others, a small grant from the India Office -secured them board and bed until such time as proper arrangements could -be made. The kitchens were working overtime, for each race or creed has -its own inexorable laws in the matter of food. Some eat this and some -eat that, and others will eat anything--save pork--provided that prayers -are spoken over it by an appointed priest. - -At half-past nine an occasional tipsy Malay might be seen about the -streets, but the old riots and melees were things of the past. In the -little public-house at the corner of Pennyfields we found the usual -crowd of Chinks and white girls, and the electric piano was gurgling its -old sorry melodies, and beer and whisky were flowing; but the whole -thing was very decorous and war-timish. - -We did, however, find one splash of colour. A new and very gaudy -restaurant had lately been opened in a narrow by-street, and here we -took a meal of noodle, chow-chow and awabi, and some tea that was a -mocking echo of the old suey-sen. The room was crowded with yellow boys -and a few white girls. Suddenly, from a corner table, occupied by two of -the ladies, came a sharp stir. A few heated words rattled on the air, -and then one rose, caught the other a resounding biff in the neck, and -screamed at her:-- - -"You dare say I'm not respectable! I _am_ respectable. I come from -Manchester." - -This evidence the assaulted one refused to regard as final. She rose, -reached over the table, and clawed madly at her opponent's face and -clothes. Then they broke from the table, and fought, and fell, and -screamed, and delivered the hideous animal noises made by those who see -red. At once the place boiled. I've never been in a Chinese rebellion, -but if the clamour and the antics of the twenty or so yellow boys in -that cafe be taken as a faint record of such an affair, it is a good -thing for the sensitive to be out of. To the corner dashed waiters and -some customers, and there they rolled one another to the floor in their -efforts to separate the girls, while others stood about and screamed -advice in the various dialects of the Celestial Empire. At last the -girls were torn apart, and struggled insanely in half a dozen grips as -they hurled inspired thoughts at one another, or returned to the old -chorus of "Dirty prostitute." "I ain't a prostitute. I come from -Manchester. Lemme gettater." - -And with a final wrench the respectable one did get at her. She broke -away, turned to a table, and with three swift gestures flung cup, saucer -and sauce-boat into the face of her traducer. That finished it. The -proprietor had stood aloof while the girls tore each other's faces and -bit at uncovered breasts. But the sight of his broken crockery acted as -a remover of gravity. He dashed down the steps, pushed aside assistants -and advisers, grabbed the nearest girl--the respectable one--round the -waist, wrestled her to the top of the marble stairs that lead from the -door to the upper restaurant, and then, with a sharp knee-kick, sent her -headlong to the bottom, where she lay quiet. - -Whereupon her opponent crashed across a table in hysterics, kicking, -moaning, laughing and sobbing: "You've killed 'er--yeh beast. You've -killed 'er. She's my pal. Oo. Oo. Oooooowh!" - -This lasted about a minute. Then, suddenly, she arose, pulled herself -together, ran madly down the stairs, picked up her pal, and staggered -with her to the street. At once, without a word of comment, the company -returned placidly to its eating and drinking; and this affair--an event -in the otherwise dull life of Limehouse--was over. - -Years ago, such affairs were of daily occurrence, and the West India -Dock Road became a legend to frighten children with at night. But the -times change. Chinatown is a back number, and there now remains no -corner to which one may take the curious visitor thirsting for exotic -excitement--unless it be the wilds of Tottenham. - -The Chinatown of New York, too, has become respectable. The founder of -that colony, Old Nick, died recently, in miserable circumstances, after -having acquired thousands of dollars by his enterprise. From the high -estate of Founder of the Chinatown he dropped to the position of -panhandler, swinging on the ears of his compatriots. About forty years -ago, when Mott Street, Pell Street, and Doyers Street were the territory -of the Whyos, the Bowery boys and the Dead Rabbits, Old Nick crept -stealthily into a small corner. He started a cigar-store in Mott Street, -making his own cigars. He was honest, thrifty, and possessed a lust for -work. The cigar-store prospered, and soon, feeling lonely, as the only -Chink among so many white boys, he passed the word to his countrymen -about the big spenders of the district. On his advice, they closed their -laundries and came to live alongside, to get their pickings from the -dollars that were flying about. Chinatown was started, and rapidly -developed, and its atmosphere was sedulously "arranged" for the benefit -of conducted tourists from uptown, and the tables rattled with the dice -and fluttered with the cards. This success was the beginning of Old -Nick's failure. At the tables he lost all: his capital, his store, his -home, and his proud position. For a time he managed to survive in fair -circumstances; but soon the hatchet men became too numerous, and their -tong feuds too deadly, and their gambling tricks too notorious. Police -raids and the firm hand of the higher Chinese merchants put a stop to -the prosperity of Chinatown, and soon it fell away to nothing, and Old -Nick passed his last days on the sporadic charity of a white woman whom -he had in happier days befriended. - -And to-day Pell Street and Mott Street are as quiet and virtuous as -Pennyfields and the Causeway. Coburn and I left the old waterside -streets with feelings of dismay, tasting ashes in the mouth. We tried to -draw from an old storekeeper, a topside good-fella chap, some expression -of his own attitude to present conditions, but with his usual -impassivity he passed it over. How could this utterly debased and -miserable one who dares to stand before noble and refined ones from -Office of Printed Leaves, who have honoured his totally inadequate -establishment with symmetrical presences, presume to offer to exalted -intelligences utterly insignificant thoughts that find lodging in -despicable breast? - -Clearly he was handing us the lemon, so we took it, and departed for the -more reckless joys of Hammersmith, where Coburn has his home. On the -journey back I remembered the drabness we had just left, and then I -remembered Limehouse as it was--a pool of Eastern filth and metropolitan -squalor; a place where unhappy Lascars, discharged from ships they were -only too glad to leave, were at once the prey of rascally lodging-house -keepers, mostly English, who fleeced them over the fan-tan tables and -then slung them to the dark alleys of the docks. A wicked place; yes, -but colourful. - -Listen to the following: two extracts from an East End paper of thirty -years back:-- - - - THAMES POLICE COURT. - - John Lyons, who keeps a common lodging-house, which he has - neglected to register, appeared before Mr. Ingram in answer to a - summons taken out by Inspector Price. J. Kirby, 53A, inspector of - common lodging-houses, stated that on Saturday night last he - visited defendant's house, which was in a most filthy and - dilapidated condition. In the first floor he found a Chinaman - sleeping in a cupboard or small closet, filled with cobwebs. The - wretched creature was without a shirt, and was covered with a few - rags. The Chinaman was apparently in a dying state, and has since - expired. An inquest was held on his remains, and it was proved he - died of fever, and had been most grossly neglected. The room in - which the Chinaman lay was without bedding or furniture. In the - second room he found Aby Callighan, an Irishwoman, who said she - paid 1s. 6d. a week rent. In the third room was Abdallah, a Lascar, - who said he paid 3s. per week, and a Chinaman squatting on a chair - smoking. In the fourth room was Dong Yoke, a Chinaman, who said he - paid 2s. 6d. per week for the privilege of sleeping on the bare - boards; two Lascars on bedsteads smoking opium, and the dead body - of a Lascar lying on the floor, and covered with an old rug. In the - fifth room was an Asiatic seaman, named Peru, who said he paid 3s. - per week, and eleven other Lascars, six of whom were sleeping on - bedsteads, three on the floor, and two on chairs. If the house were - registered, only four persons would be allowed in the room. The - effluvium, caused by smoking opium and the over-crowded state of - the room, was most nauseous and intolerable. In the kitchen, which - was very damp, he found Sedgoo, who said he had to pay 2s. a week, - and eight Chinamen huddled together. The stench here was very bad. - If the house were registered, no one would have been allowed to - inhabit the kitchen at all. He should say the house was quite unfit - for a human habitation. The floors of the rooms, the stairs and - passages were in a filthy and dilapidated condition, covered with - slime, dirt, and all kinds of odious substances. - - The men had been hung up with weights tied to their feet; flogged - with a rope; pork, the horror of the Mohammedan, served out to them - to eat, and the insult carried further by violently ramming the - tail of a pig into their mouths and twisting the entrails of the - pig round their necks; they were forced up aloft at the point of - the bayonet, and a shirt all gory with Lascar blood was exhibited - on the trial, and all this proved in evidence. One man leaped - overboard to escape his tormentor; a boat was about to be lowered - to save the drowning man, but it was prohibited, and he was left to - perish. The captain escaped out of the country, forfeiting his bail - and abandoning his ship, leaving his chief officer to be brought - to trial and to undergo punishment for his share of this cruel - transaction. - - -In those days you might stand in West India Dock Road, on a June -evening, in a dusk of blue and silver, the air heavy with the reek of -betel nut, chandu and fried fish; the cottages stewing themselves in -their viscid heat. Against the skyline rose Limehouse Church, one of the -architectural beauties of London. Yellow men and brown ambled about you, -and a melancholy guitar tinkled a melody of lost years. Then, were -colour and movement; the whisper of slippered feet; the adventurous -uncertainty of shadow; heavy mist, which never lifts from Poplar and -Limehouse; strange voices creeping from nowhere; and occasionally the -rasp of a gramophone delivering records of interminable Chinese dramas. -The soul of the Orient wove its spell about you, until, into this -evanescent atmosphere, came a Salvation Army chorus bawling a lot of -emphatic stuff about glory and blood, or an organ with "It ain't all -lavender!" and at once the clamour and reek of the place caught you. - -Thirty years ago--that was its time of roses. Then, indeed, things did -happen: things so strong that the perfume of them lingers to this day, -and one can, remembering them, sometimes sympathize with those who say -"LIMEHOUSE" in tones of terror. One of my earliest memories is of the -West India Dock Road on a wet November afternoon. A fight was on between -a Chink and a Malay. The Chink used a knife in an upward direction, -forcefully. The Malay got the Chink down, and jumped with heavy boots on -the bleeding yellow face. - -Some time ago, when my ways were cast in that district, the boys would -loaf at a kind of semi-private music-hall, attached to a public-house, -where one of the Westernized Chinks, a San Sam Phung, led the band, and -freely admitted all friends who bought him drinks. Every night he -climbed to his chair, and his yellow face rose like a November sun over -the orchestra-rail. When the conductor's tap turned on the flow of the -dozen instruments, which blared rag-tag music, we shifted to the -babbling bar and tried to be amused by the show. It was the dustiest -thing in entertainment that you can imagine. To this day the hall stinks -of snarling song. Dusty jokes we had, dusty music, dusty dresses, dusty -girls to wear them, or take them off; and only the flogging of cheap -whisky to carry us through the evening. Solemn smokes of cut plug and -indifferent cigar swirled in a haze of lilac, and over the opiate air -San's fiddle would wail, surging up to the balcony's rim and the cloud -of corpse faces that swam above it. More and more mephitic the air would -grow, and noisier would become voice and foot and glass; until, with a -burst of lights, and the roar of the chord-off from the band, the end -would come, and we would tumble out into the great road where were the -winking river, and keen air and sanity. - -Later, the boys would shuffle along with San Sam Phung to his lodging -over a waterside wine-shop, crossing the crazy bridge into the Isle of -Dogs. Often, passing at midnight, you might have heard his heart-song -trickling from an open window. He cared only for the modern, Italianate -stuff, and would play it for hours at a time. Seated in the orchestra, -in his second-hand dress-suit and well-oiled hair, he looked about as -picturesque as a Bayswater boarding-house. But you should have seen him -afterwards, during the day, in his one-room establishment, radiant in -spangled dressing-gown and tempestuous hair, a cigarette at his lips, -his fiddle at his chin. It was worth sitting up late for. Then his face -would shine, if ever a Chink's can, and his bow would tear the soul -from the fiddle in a fury of lyricism. - -Half his room was filled with a stove, which thrust a long neck of -piping ten feet in the wrong direction, and then swerved impulsively to -the window. In the corner was a joss. The rest of the room was littered -with fiddles and music. Over the stove hung a gaudy view of Amoy. He -never tired of talking of Amoy, his home. He longed to get back to -it--to flowers, blue waters, white towns. He lived only for the moment -when he might tuck his fiddle-case under his arm and return to Amoy, -home and beauty. Once started on the tawdry ribaldry which he had to -play at the hall, his arm and fingers following mechanically the sheet -before him, he would set his fancies free, and, like a flock of -rose-winged birds, they took flight to Amoy. Music, for him, was just -melody--the graceful surface of things; in a word Amoy. Often he -confessed to a terrible fear that he would grow old and die among our -swart streets ere he could save enough to return. And he did. Full of -the poppy one dark night, he stepped over the edge of a wharf at -Millwall. Then, at the inquiry, it was discovered that his nostalgia for -Amoy was pure fake. He had never been there. He was born on a boat that -crawled up-river one foggy morning, and had never for a day gone out of -London. - -There were many other delightful creatures of Limehouse whose names lie -persistently on the memory. There was Afong, a chimpanzee who ran a -pen-yen joint. There was Chinese Emma, in whose establishment one could -go "sleigh-riding." There was Shaik Boxhoo, a gentleman who did -unpleasant things, and finally got religion and other advantages over -his less wily brothers, who got only the jug. Faults they had in plenty, -these throwbacks, but their faults were original. Every one of them was -a bit of sharp-flavoured character, individual and distinct. - -In those days there was a waste patch of wan grass, called The Gardens, -near the Quarter, and something like a band performed there once a week. -O Carnival, Carnival! There the local crowd would go, and there, to the -music of dear Verdi, light feet would clatter about the asphalt walk, -and there would happen what happens every Sunday night in those parts of -London where are parks, promenades, bandstands and monkeys' parades. In -the hot spangled dusk, the groups of girls, brave with best frocks and -daring ribbons, would fling their love and their laughter to all who -would have them. Through the plaintive music--poor Verdi! how like a -wheezy music-box his crinoline melodies sounded, even then!--would swim -little ripples of laughter when the girls were caressing or being -caressed; and always the lisp of feet and the whisk of darling frocks -kissing little black shoes. - -Near by was the old "Royal Sovereign," which had a skittle-alley. There -would gather the lousy Lascars, and there they would roll, bowl or -pitch. Then they would swill. Later, they would roll, bowl or pitch, -with a skinful of gin, through the reeling streets to whichever boat -might claim them. - -The black Lascars, unlike their yellow mates, are mostly disagreeable -people. There was, in those days, but one of them who even approached -affability. He was something of a Limehouse Wonder, for, in a sudden -fight over spilt beer, he showed amazing aptitude not only with his -fists, but also in ringcraft. Chuck Lightfoot, a local sport, happened -to see him, and took him in hand, and for some years he stayed in -Shadwell, putting one after another of the local lads to sleep. He -finished his ring career in a dockside saloon by knocking out an -offending white man who had chipped him about his colour. It was a foul -blow, and the man died. Pennyfields Polly got twelve months, and when he -came out he started on the poppy and the snow, for he was not allowed to -fight again, and life held nothing else for him. His friends tried to -dissuade him, on the ground that he was ruining his health--a sensible -argument to put to a man who had no interest in life; they might as well -have told an Arctic explorer, who had lost the trail, that his tie was -creeping up the back of his neck. - -It is curious how the boys cling to you after a brief interchange of -hospitalities. You drop into a beer-shack one evening, and you are sure -to find a friend. One makes so easily in these parts a connection, -salutations, fugitive intimacy. You are suddenly saluted, it may be by -that good old friend, Mr. Lo, the poor Indian, or John Sam Ling Lee. -Vaguely you recall the name. Yes; you stood him a drink, some ten years -ago. Where has he been? Oh, he found a boat ... went round the Horn ... -stranded at Lima ... been in Cuba some time ... got to Swatow later ... -might stay in London ... might get a boat on Saturday. - -But these casual encounters are now hardly to be had. So many boys, so -many places have disappeared. Blue Gate Fields, scene of many an Asiatic -demonism, is gone. The "Royal Sovereign"--the _old_ "Royal -Sovereign"--is gone, and the Home for Asiatics reigns in its stead. The -hop-shacks about the Poplar arches and the closed courtyards and their -one-story cottages are no more. To-day--as I have said three times -already; stop me if I say it again--the glamorous shame of Chinatown has -departed. Nothing remains save tradition, which now and then is fanned -into life by such a case as that of the drugged actress. Yet you may -still find people who journey fearfully to Limehouse, and spend money in -its shops and restaurants, and suffer their self-manufactured -excitements while sojourning in its somnolent streets among the -respectable sons of Canton. The boys will not thank me for robbing them -of the soft marks who pay twenty shillings for a jade bangle, of the -kind sold in a sixpenny-halfpenny bazaar; so, anticipating their -celestial disapproval, this miserable prostrates himself and remains -bowed for their gracious pardon, and begs to be permitted to say that -the entirely inadequate benedictions of this one will be upon them until -the waning of the last moon. - - - - -SOHO CARRIES ON - - -Soho! Soho! - -Joyous syllables, in early times expressive of the delights of the -chase, and even to-day carrying an echo of nights of festivity, though -an echo only. How many thousand of provincials, seeing London, have been -drawn to those odourous byways that thrust themselves so briskly through -the staid pleasure-land of the West End--Greek Street, Frith Street, -Dean Street, Old Compton Street: a series of interjections breaking a -dull paragraph--where they might catch the true Latin temper and bear -away to the smoking-rooms of country Conservative clubs fulsome tales -that have made Soho already a legend. Indeed, I know one cautious lad -from Yorkshire, whose creed is that You Never Know and You Can't Be Too -Careful, who always furnishes himself with a loaded revolver when dining -with a town friend in Soho. I am not one to look sourly upon the simple -pleasures of the poor; I do not begrudge him his concocted dish of -thrills. I only mention this trick of his because it proves again the -strange resurrective powers of an oft-buried lie. You may sweep, you may -garnish Soho if you will; but the scent of adventure will hang round it -still. - -But to-day the scent is very faint. The streets that once rang with -laughter and prodigal talk are in A.D. 1917 charged with gloom; their -gentle noise is pitched in the minor key. These morsels of the South, -shovelled into the swart melancholies of central London, have lost their -happy summer tone. Charing Cross Road was always a streak of misery, -but, on the most leaden day, its side streets gave an impression of -light. Lord knows whence came the light. Not from the skies. Perhaps -from the indolently vivacious loungers; perhaps from the flower-boxes on -the window-sills, or the variegated shops bowered with pendant polonies, -in rainbow wrappings of tinfoil, and flasks of Chianti. One always -walked down Old Compton Street with a lilt, as to some carnival tune. -Nothing mattered. There were macaroni and spaghetti to eat, and Chianti -to drink; dishes of ravioli; cigars at a halfpenny a time and cigarettes -at six a penny; copies of frivolous comic-papers; and delicate glasses -of lire, a liqueur that carried you at the first sip to the green-hued -Mediterranean. The very smell of the place was the smell of those -lovable little towns of the Midi. - -But all is now changed. Gone are the shilling tables-d'hote and their -ravishing dishes. Gone is the pint of vin ordinaire at tenpence. Will -they ever come again, those gigantic, lamp-lit evenings, those Homeric -bob's-worths of hors-d'oeuvre, soup, omelette, chicken, cheese and -coffee? Shall we ever again cross Oxford Street to the old German -Quarter and drink their excellent Pilsener and Munchner, in heartening -steins, and eat their leber-wurst sandwiches, and smoke their long, thin -cigars? Or seat ourselves in the Schweitzerhof, where four wonderful -dishes were placed before you at a cost of tenpence by some dastard spy, -in the pay of that invisible-cloak artist, the English Bolo?--who -doubtless reported to Berlin our conversation about Phyllis Monkman's -hair and Billy Merson's technique. Nay, I think not. The blight of -civilization is upon Soho. Many once cosy and memorable cafes are -closed. Other places have altered their note and become uncomfortably -English; while those that retain their atmosphere and their customers -have considerably changed their menu and cuisine. One-and-ninepence is -the lowest charge for a table-d'hote--and pretty poor hunting at that. -The old elaborate half-crown dinners are now less elaborate and cost -four shillings. And the wine-lists--well, wouldn't they knock poor Omar -off his perch? I don't know who bought Omar's drinks, or whether he paid -for his own, but if he lived in Soho to-day he'd have a pretty thin time -either way--unless the factory price for tents had increased in -proportion with other things. - -Gone, too, is the delicious atmosphere of _laisser-faire_ that made Soho -a refreshment of the soul for the visitors from Streatham and Ealing. -Soho's patrons to-day have a furtive, guilty look about them. You see, -they are trying to be happy in war-time. No more do you see in the cafes -the cold-eyed anarchists and the petty bourgeois and artisans from the -foreign warehouses of the locality. In their place are heavy-eyed women, -placid and monosyllabic, and much khaki and horizon blue. Many of the -British soldiers, officers and privates, are men who have not yet been -out, and are experimenting with their French among the French girls who -have taken the places of the swift-footed, gestic Luigi, Francois or -Alphonse; others have come from France, where they have discovered the -piquancy of French cooking, and desire no more the solidities of the -"old English" chop-house. - -Over all is an atmosphere of restraint. Gone are the furious argument -and the preposterous accord. Gone are the colour and the loud lights and -the evening noise. Soho is marking time, until the good days return--if -ever. Not in 1917 do you see Old Compton Street as a line of warm and -fragrant cafe-windows; instead, you stumble drunkenly through a dim, -murky lane, and take your chance by pushing the first black door that -exudes a smell of food. Gone, too, are those exotic foods that brought -such zest to the jaded palate. The macaroni and spaghetti now being -manufactured in London are poor substitutes for the real thing, being -served in long, flat strips instead of in the graceful pipe form of -other days. Camembert, Brie, Roquefort, Gruyere, Port Salut, Strachini -and other enchanting cheeses are unobtainable; and you may cry in vain -for edible snails and the savoury stew of frogs' legs. True, the Chinese -cafe in Regent Street can furnish for the adventurous stomach such -trifles as black eggs (guaranteed thirty years old), sharks' fins at -seven shillings a portion, stewed seaweed, bamboo shoots, and sweet -birds'-nests; but Regent Street is beyond the bounds of Soho. - -Nevertheless, if you attend carefully, and if you are lucky, you may -still catch in Old Compton Street a faint echo of its graces and -picturesque melancholy. You may still see and hear the sombre Yid, the -furious Italian, the yodelling Swiss, and the deprecating French, -hanging about the dozen or so coffee-bars that have appeared since 1914. -A few of these places existed in certain corners of London long before -that date, but it is only lately that the Londoner has discovered them -and called for more. The Londoner--I offer this fact to all students of -national traits--must always lean when taking his refreshment. Certain -gay and festive gentlemen, who constitute an instrument of order called -the Central Control Board, forbid him to lean in those places where, of -old, he was accustomed to lean; at any rate, he is only allowed to lean -during certain defined hours. You might think that he would have gladly -availed himself of this opportunity for resting awhile by sitting at a -marble-topped table and drinking coffee or tea, or--horrid -thought!--cocoa. But no; he isn't happy unless he leans over his -refreshment; and the cafe-bar has supplied his demands. There is -something in leaning against a bar which entirely changes one's outlook. -You may sit at a table and drink whisky-and-soda, and yet not achieve a -tithe of the expansiveness that is yours when you are leaning against a -bar and drinking dispiriting stuff like coffee or sirop. Maybe the -physical attitude reacts on the mind, and tightens up certain cords or -sinews, or eases the blood-pressure; anyway, fears, doubts, and cautions -seem to vanish in these little corners of France, and momentarily the -old animation of Soho returns. - -In these places you may perchance yet capture for a fleeting space the -will-o'-the-wisperie of other days: movement and festal colour; laughter -and quick tears; the warm jest and the darkling mystery that epitomize -the city of all cities; and the wanton, rose-winged graces that flutter -about the fair head of M'selle Lolotte, as she hands you your cafe -nature and an April smile for sweetening, carry to you a breath of the -glitter and spaciousness of old time. You do not know Lolotte, perhaps! -Thousand commiserations, M'sieu! What damage! Is Lolotte lovely and -delicate? But of a loveliness of the most ravishing! The shining hair -and the eyes of the most disturbing! Lolotte is in direct descent from -Mimi Pinson, half angel and half puss. - -Soldiers of all the Allied armies gather about her crescent-shaped bar -after half-past nine of an evening. The floor is sawdusted. The counter -is sloppy with overflows of coffee. Lips and nose receive from the air -that bitter tang derived only from the smoke of Maryland tobacco. The -varied uniforms of the patrons make a harmony of debonair gaiety with -the many-coloured bottles of cordials and sirops. - -"_Pardon, m'sieu!_" cries the poilu, as he accidentally jogs the arm by -which Sergeant Michael Cassidy is raising his coffee-cup. - -"_Oh, sarner fairy hang, mossoo! Moselle, donnay mwaw urn Granny Dean._" - -"_M'sieu parle francais, alors?_" - -"_Ah, oui. Jer parle urn purr._" - -And another supporting column is added to the structure of the Entente. - -Over in the corner stands a little fat fellow. That corner belongs to -him by right of three years' occupation. He is 'Ockington from a nearby -printing works. Ask 'Ockington what he thinks about these 'ere -coffee-bars. - -"Ah," he'll say, "I like these Frenchified caffies. Grand idea, if you -ask me. Makes yeh feel as though you was abroad-like. Gives yeh that -Lazy-Fare feelin'. I bin abroad, y'know. Dessay you 'ave, too, shouldn't -wonder. I don't blame yeh. See what yeh can while yeh can, 'ats what I -say. My young Sid went over to Paris one Bang Koliday, 'fore the war, -an' he come back as different again. Yerce, I'm all fer the French -caffies, I am. Nicely got up, I think. Good meoggerny counter; and this -floor and the walls--all done in that what-d'ye call it--mosey-ac. What -I alwis say is this: the French is a gay nation. Gay. And you feel it -'ere, doncher? Sort of cheers you up, like, if yer know what I mean, to -drop in 'ere for a minute or two.... Year or two ago, now, after a rush -job at the Works, I used to stop at a coffee-stall on me way 'ome late -at night, an' 'ave a penny cup o' swipes--yerce, an' glad _of_ it. But -the difference in the stuff they give yer 'ere--don't it drink lovely -and smooth?" - -Then his monologue is interrupted by the electric piano, which some one -has fed with pennies; and your ear is charmed or tortured by the latest -revue music or old favourites from Paris and Naples--"Marguerite," "Sous -les ponts de Paris," "Monaco," the Tripoli March. If you appear -interested in the piano, whose voice Lolotte loves, she will offer to -toss you for the next penn'orth. Never does she lose. She wins by the -simple trick of snatching your penny away the moment you lift your hand -from it, and gurgling delightedly at your discomfiture. - -No wonder the coffee-bar has become such a feature of London life in -this time of war. Leaning, in Lolotte's bar, is a real and not a forced -pleasure. In the old days one could lean and absorb the drink of one's -choice; but amid what company and with what service! Who could possibly -desire to exchange fatigued inanities with the vacuous vulgarities who -administer the ordinary London bar; who seem, like telephone girls, to -have taken lessons from some insane teacher of elocution, with their -"Nooh riarly?" expressive of incredulity; and their "Is yewers a -Scartch, Mr. Iggulden?" But in Lolotte's bar, talk is bright, sometimes -distinctly clever, and one lingers over one's coffee, chaffering with -her for--well, ask 'Ockington how long he stays. - -But Lolotte is not always gay. Sometimes she will tell you stories of -Paris. There is a terrible story which she tells when she is feeling -triste. It is the story of a girl friend of hers with whom she worked -in Paris. The girl grew ill; lost her work; and earned her living by the -only possible means, until she grew too ill for that. One night Lolotte -met her wearily walking the streets. She had been without food for two -days, and had that morning been turned from her lodging. Suddenly, as -they passed a florist's, she darted through its doors and inquired the -price of some opulent blooms at the further end of the shop. The -shop-man turned towards them, and, as he turned, she dexterously -snatched a bunch of white violets from a vase on the counter. The price -of the orchids, she decided, was too high, and she came out. - -Lolotte, who had seen the trick from the doorway, inquired the reason -for the theft. And the answer was: - -"_Eh, bien; il faut avoir quelquechose quand on va rencontrer le bon -Dieu._" - -Two days later her body, with a bunch of white violets fastened at the -neck, was recovered from the Seine. - - - - -OUT OF TOWN - - -It was an empty day, in the early part of the year, and I was its very -idle singer; so idle that I was beginning to wonder whether there would -be any Sunday dinner for me. I took stock of my possessions in coin, and -found one-and-ten-pence-halfpenny. Was I downhearted? Yes. But I didn't -worry, for when things are at their worst, my habit is always to fold my -hands and trust. Something always happens. - -Something happened on this occasion: a double knock at the door and a -telegram. It was from the most enlightened London publisher, whose firm -has done so much in the way of encouraging young writers, and it asked -me to call at once. I did so. - -"Like to go to Monte Carlo?" he asked. - -When I had recovered from the swoon, I begged him to ask another. - -"Here's an American millionaire," he said, "writing from Monte Carlo. -He wants to write a book, and he wants some assistance. How would it -suit you?" - -I said it would suit me like a Savile Row outfit of clothes. - -"When can you go?" - -"Any old time." - -"Right. You'd better wire him, and tell him I told you to. Don't let -yourself go cheap. Good-bye." - -I didn't fall on his neck in an outburst of gratitude: he wouldn't have -liked it. But I yodelled and chirruped all the way to the nearest -post-office, having touched a friend for ten shillings on the strength -of the stunt. All that day and the next, telegrams passed between Monte -Carlo and Balham. I asked a noble salary and expenses, and a wire came -back: "Start at once." I replied: "No money." Ten pounds were delivered -at my doorstep next morning, with the repeated message "Start at once." - -But starting at once, in war-time, was not so easily done. There was a -passport to get. That meant three days' lounging in a little wooden hut -in the yard of the Foreign Office. Having got the passport, I spent four -hours in a queue outside the French Consulate before I could get it -_vise_. Six days after the first telegram, I stood shivering on Victoria -Station at seven o'clock of a cadaverous January morning. Having been -well and truly searched in another little hut, and having kissed the -book, and sworn full-flavoured oaths about correspondence, and thought -of a number, and added four to it, I was allowed to board the train. - -Half the British Army was on that train, and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome and -myself were the only civilians in our carriage. You will rightly guess -that it was a lively journey. I had always wondered, in peace-time, why -the jew's-harp was invented. I understand now. In the histories of this -war, the jew's-harp will take as romantic a place as the pipes of -Lucknow or the drums of Oude in the histories of other wars. - -At Folkestone there were more searchings, more stamping of passports, -more papers and "permissions" to bulk one's pocket and perplex one's -mind. On the boat, standing-room only, and when a gestic stewardess -sought seats for a fond mother and five little ones in the ladies' -saloon, she found all places occupied by khaki figures stretched at full -length. - -"_Seulement les dames!_" she cried, pointing to a notice over the door. - -"_Aha, madame!_" said a stalwart Australian, "_mais c'est la guerre!_" -In other words "Aubrey Llewellyn Coventry Fell to you!" - -Yes, it was war; and it was tactfully suggested to us by the crew, for, -when we were clear of Folkestone harbour, all boats were slung out, and -lifeboats were placed in tragic heaps on either side. It was a cold, -angry sea, and stewards and stewardesses became aggressively prophetic -about the fine crossing that we were to have. Germany had a few days -before declared her first blockade of the English coast, and every speck -on the sea became dreadfully portentous. At mid-Channel a destroyer -stood in to us and ran up a stream of signals. - -"This is it," chortled a Cockney, between violent trips to the side; -"this is it! Now we're for it!" - -Next moment I got a push in the back, and I thought it had come. But it -was the elbow of one of the crew who had rushed forward, and was sorting -bits of bunting from an impossibly tangled heap at my side. In about two -seconds, he found what he wanted and hauled at a rope. Up went what -looked like a patchwork counterpane, until the breeze caught it, when it -became a string of shapes and colours, straining deliriously against its -fastenings. Then down it came; then up again; then down; then up; then -down; and that was the end of that conversation. I don't know what it -signified, but half an hour later we were in Boulogne harbour. - -More comic business with papers; then to the train. Yes, it was war. The -bridge over the Oise had not then been repaired; so we crawled to Paris -by an absurdly crab-like route. We left Boulogne just after twelve. We -reached Paris at ten o'clock at night. There was no food on the train, -and from six o'clock that morning, when I had had a swift cup of tea, -until nearly midnight I got nothing in the way of refreshment. But who -cared? I was going South to meet an American millionaire, and I had -money in my pocket. - -I arrived at Paris too late to connect with that night's P.L.M. express, -so I had twenty-four hours to kill. I strolled idly about, and found -Paris very little changed. There was an air about the people of -irritation, of questioning, of petulant suffering; they had a manner -expressive of "_A quoi bon?_" Somebody in high quarters had brought -this thing upon them. Somebody in high quarters might rescue them from -its evils--or might not. They moved like stricken animals, their -habitual melancholy, which is often unnoticed because it is overlaid -with vivacity, now permanently in possession. - -I caught the night express to Monte Carlo. Our carriage contained eight -sombre people, and the corridors were strewn with sleep-stupid soldiers. -I was one sardine among many, and, with a twenty-seven-hour journey -before me in this overheated, hermetically sealed sardine-tin, I began -to think what a fool I had been to make this absurd journey to a place -that was strange to me; to meet a millionaire about whom I knew nothing, -and who might have changed his mind, millionaire-fashion, and left Monte -Carlo by the time I got there; and to undertake a job which I might -find, on examination, was beyond me. - -Then, with a French girl's head on one shoulder, and my other twisted at -an impossible angle into the window-frame, I went to sleep and awoke at -Lyons, with a horrible headache and an unbearable mouth, the result of -the boiling and over-spiced soup I had swallowed the night before. I -think we all hated each other. It was impossible to wash or arrange -oneself decently, and again there was no food on the train. But, as only -the Latin mind can, we made the best of it and pretended that it was -funny. Girls and men, complete strangers, drooped in abandonment against -one another, or reclined on unknown necks. A young married couple -behaved in a way that at other times would have meant a divorce. The -husband rested his sagging head on the bosom of a stout matron, and a -poilu stretched a rug across his knees and made a comfortable pillow for -the little wife. _N'importe. C'etait la guerre._ - -On the platform at Lyons were groups of French Red Cross girls with -wagons of coffee. This coffee was for the soldiers, but they handed it -round impartially to civilians and soldiers alike, and those who cared -could drop a few sous into the collecting basin. That coffee was the -sweetest draught I had ever swallowed. - -At Marseilles it was bright morning, and I was lucky enough to get a -pannier, at a trifling cost of seven francs. These panniers are no meal -for a hungry man. They contain a bone of chicken, a scrap of ham, a -corner of Gruyere, a stick of bread (that surely was made by the firm -that put the sand in sandwich), a half-bottle of sour white wine, a -bottle of the eternal Vichy, Old Uncle Tom Cobleigh and all. - -I had just finished it when we rolled into Toulon, and there I got my -first glimpse of the true, warm South. I suffered a curious sense of -"coming home." I had not known it, but all my childish dreams must have -had for their background this coloured South, for, the moment it spread -itself before me, bits of Verdi melodies ran through my heart and brain -and I danced a double-shuffle. Since I was old enough to handle a -fiddle, all music has interpreted itself to me in a visualization of -blue seas, white coasts, green palms with lemon and nectarine dancing -through them, and noisy, sun-bright towns, and swart faces and -languorous and joyfully dirty people. The keenest sense of being at home -came later, when, at Monte Carlo, I met Giacomo Puccini, the hero of my -young days, whose music had illumined so many dark moments of my City -slavery; who is in the direct line of succession from Verdi. - -This first visit to Monte Carlo showed me Monte Carlo as she never was -before. Half the hotels were closed or turned into hospitals, since all -the German hotel-staffs had been packed home. In other times it would -have been "the season," but now there was everywhere a sense of -emptiness. Wounded British and French officers paraded the Terrace; -disabled blacks from Algeria were on every hotel verandah or wandering -aimlessly about the hilly streets with a sad air of being lost. The -Casino was open, but it closed at eleven, and all the cafes closed with -it; the former happy night-life had been nipped off short. At midnight -the place was dead. - -I was accommodated at an Italian _pension_ in Beausoleil, which, in -peace-times, was patronized by music-hall artists working the Beausoleil -casino. The Casino had been turned into a barracks, but one or two -Italian danseuses from the cabarets of San Remo were taking a brief -rest, so that the days were less tiresome than they might have been. My -millionaire was a charming man, who used my services but a few hours -each day. Then I could dally with the sunshine and the Chianti and the -breaking seas about the Condamine. - -When I next want a cheap holiday I shan't go to Brighton, or Eastbourne, -or Cromer; I shall go to Monte Carlo. The dear Italian Mama who kept the -_pension_ treated me like a prince for thirty-five francs a week. I had -a large bedroom, with four windows looking to the Alpes Maritimes, and a -huge, downy French bed; I had coffee and roll in the morning; a -four-course lunch of Italian dishes, with a bottle of Chianti or Barolo; -and a five-course dinner, again with a bottle. Those meals were the most -delightful I have ever taken. The windows of the dining-room were flung -wide to the Mediterranean, and between courses we could bask on the -verandah while one of the girls would touch the guitar, the mandolin, or -the accordion (sometimes we had all three going at once), in -effervescent Neapolitan melody. My contribution to these meal-time -entertainments was an English song of which they never tired: "The Man -that Broke the Bank at Monte Carr-rr-lo!" Sometimes it was demanded five -or six times in an evening. Immediately I arrived I was properly -embraced and kissed by Mama and the three girls, and these rapturous -kisses seemed to be part of the etiquette of the establishment, for they -happened every morning and after all meals. M'selle Lola was allotted to -me; a blonde Italian, afire with mischief and loving-kindness and little -delicacies of affection. - -On the third day of my visit I met a kindred soul, the wireless -operator from the Prince of Monaco's yacht, _L'Hirondelle_, which was -lying in the harbour on loan to the French Government. He was a bright -youth; had been many times on long cruises with the yacht, and spoke -English which was as good as my French was bad. We had some delightful -"noces" together, and it was in his company that I met and had talks -with Caruso at the Cafe de Paris. An opera season was running at the -Casino, and on opera nights the cafe remained open until a little past -midnight. After the evening's work Caruso would drop into the cafe and -talk with everybody. His naive gratification when I told him how I had -saved money for weeks, and had waited hours at the gallery door of -Covent Garden to hear him sing, was delightful to witness. Prince George -of Serbia was also there, recuperating; but though the Terrace at -mid-day was crowded and pleasantly bright, I was told that against the -Terrace in the old seasons it was miserably dull. - -On ordinary nights, when we felt still fresh at eleven o'clock, we would -take a car to Mentone, cross the frontier into Italy (which was not then -at war), and spend a few cheery hours at Bordighera or San Remo, which -were nightless. Then back to Monte Carlo at about five, to bed, and up -again at nine, with no feeling of fatigue. It was curious to note how, -under that sharp sunshine and keen night sky, all moral values were -changed, or wholly obliterated. The first breath of the youthful company -at the _pension_ blew all London cobwebs away. It was all so abandoned, -yet so sweet and wholesome; and, by contrast, the English seaside -resort, where the girls play at "letting themselves go," was a crude and -shameful farce. Whatever happened at Monaco seemed to be right; nothing -was wrong except frigidity and unkindness. - -My dear Italian Mama said to me one evening at dinner, when I had (in -the English sense) disgraced myself by a remark straight from the -heart:-- - -"_M'sieu Thomas, on m'a dit que les anglais ont froid. C'est pas vrai!_" - -No, dear Mamina; but it was true before I stayed at the Pension Poggio -at Beausoleil. - -My work with the millionaire spread itself over two months; then, with a -fat wad, I was free to return. It was not until I went to the Consulate -to get my passport _vise_ that I discovered how many war-time laws of -France I had broken. I had not registered myself on arrival; I had not -reported myself periodically; and I had not obtained a _permis de -sejour_. The Consul informed me cheerfully that heaps of trouble would -be waiting for me when I went to the Mairie to get my _laissez-passer_, -without which I could not buy a railway ticket. However, after being -stood in a corner for two hours until all other travellers had received -attention, a _laissez-passer_ was thrown at me on my undertaking to -leave Monte Carlo that night. A gendarme accompanied me to the station -to see that I did so. - -At Paris, a few hours spent with the police, the military, -Hotel-de-Ville, and the British Consulate resulted in permission to kick -my heels there for a day or so. - -A few mornings later arrived the millionaire's precious MS., which I had -left behind so that he might revise it, with a message to hustle. I -hustled. I reached London the same night. Next morning I negotiated with -a publisher. In two days it was in the printer's hands and in a -fortnight it was in the bookshops; and I was again out of a job. - - - - -IN SEARCH OF A SHOW - - -I have been looking for a needle in a haystack, and I have not found it. -I have been looking for an hour's true entertainment in London's -theatres and music-halls during this spring season of 1918. - -The tag of Mr. Gus Elen's old song, "'E dunno where 'e are," very aptly -describes the condition of the regular theatre-goer to-day. What would -the old laddies of the Bodega-cheese days have thought, had any -prophesied that at one swift step the Oxford and the Pavilion would -simultaneously move into the ranks of the "legitimate;" that His -Majesty's Theatre would be running a pantomime; that smoking would be -allowed in the Lyceum, the Comedy, the Vaudeville, and the Garrick? Many -people have lost their individuality by being merged into one or other -war-movement since 1914; many streets have entirely lost those -distinctive features which enable us to recognize them at one glance or -by sound or smell; but nowhere has the war more completely smashed -personality than in theatre-land. - -In the old days (one must use that pathetic phrase in speaking of -ante-1914), the visitor to London knew precisely the type of -entertainment and the type of audience he would find at any given -establishment. To-day, one figures his bewilderment--verily, 'e dunno -where 'e are. Formerly, he could be sure that at the Garrick he would -find Mr. Bourchier playing a Bourchieresque part. At His Majesty's he -would find just what he wanted--or would want what he found--for going -to His Majesty's was not a matter of dropping in: it was a pious -function. At the Alhambra or the Empire he would be sure of finding -excellent ballet at about ten o'clock, when he could sip his drink, -stroll round the promenade, and leave when he felt like it. At the time -I write he finds Mr. Bourchier playing low comedy at a transformed -music-hall, and at the Alhambra or the Empire he finds a suburban crowd, -neatly seated in rows--father, mother and flappers--watching a quite -innocuous entertainment. - -Managers were long wont to classify in their minds the "Garrick" -audience, the "Daly" audience, the "Adelphi" audience, the "Haymarket" -audience; and plays would be refused by a manager on the ground that -"our audience wouldn't stand it; try the Lyric." To-day they are all in -the melting-pot, and the poor habitue of the So-and-so Theatre has to -take what is given him, and be mighty thankful for it. - -At one time I loved a show, however cheap its kind; but in these days, -after visiting a war-time show and suffering the feeling of assisting at -some forbidden rite, I always wish I had wasted the evening in some -other manner. Since 1914 the theatres have not produced one show that -any sober man would pay two pence to see. The stuff that has been -produced has paid its way because the bulk of the public is drunk--with -war or overwork. The story of the stage since 1914 may be given in one -word--"Punk." Knowing that we are all too preoccupied with solemn -affairs to examine very closely our money's-worth, and knowing that the -boys on leave are not likely to be too hypercritical, the theatrical -money-lords--with one noble exception--have taken advantage of the -situation to fub us off with any old store-room rubbish. We have dozens -of genuine music-hall comedians on the stage to-day, but they are all -slacking. Some of them get absorbed by West End shows, and at once, when -they appear on the gigantic American stages of some of our modern -theatres, surrounded by crowds of elephantine women, they lose whatever -character and spontaneity they had. Others give the bulk of their time -and brains to earning cheap notoriety by raising funds for charities or -cultivating allotments--both commendable activities, but not compatible -with the serious business of cheering the public. Gradually, the -individual is being frozen out, and the stages are loaded with crowds of -horsey, child-aping women, called by courtesy a beauty chorus; the show -being called, also by courtesy, a revue. These shows resemble a revue as -much as the short stories of popular magazines resemble a _conte_. They -dazzle the eye and blast the ear, and, instead of entertaining, exhaust. - -The artists have, allowing for human nature, done their best under -trying circumstances; but playing to an audience of overseas khaki and -tired working-people, who applaud their most maladroit japes, has had -the effect of wearing them down. They no longer work. They take the -easiest way, knowing that any remark about the Kaiser, Old Bill, -meat-cards, or the Better 'Ole is sure of a laugh. - -One solitary example of money's-worth in war-time I found--but that is -outside the lists of vaudeville or drama. I mean Sir Thomas Beecham's -operative enterprise. Beginning, in 1915, to develop his previous -tentative experiments--fighting against indifference, prejudice, often -against active opposition--he went steadily on; and it is he whom our -men must thank if, on returning, they find in England something besides -factories and barracks. There is no man who, amid this welter of blood -and hate, has performed work of higher national importance. While every -effort was made to stifle or stultify every movement that made towards -sanity and vision, he went doggedly forward, striving to save from the -wreckage some trifle of sweetness and loveliness for those who have ears -to hear. Had certain good people had their way, he, his ideals, his -singers, his orchestra and his band instruments would have been flung -into the general cesspool, to lie there and rot. But he won through; and -I think only that enemy of civilization, the screaming, flag-wagging -patriot, will disagree with a famous Major-General who, in full -war-paint, stood at my side in the theatre bar between the acts of -_Tristan_, and, turning upon a querulous civilian who had snorted -against Wagner, cried angrily:-- - -"Nonsense, sir, nonsense. War is war. And music is music." - -After years of struggling, Beecham has made it possible for an English -singer to sing to English audiences under his English name, and has -proved what theatrical and music-hall managers never attempt to prove: -that England can produce her own native talent in music and drama, -without taking the fourth-rate and fifth-rate, as well as the -first-rate, material of America and the Continent. He has shown himself -at once a philanthropist and a patriot. In none of his productions do we -find signs of that cheap philosophy that "anything will do for -war-time." Before the arrival of his company, opera in London was a mere -social function which (except from the point of view of the galleryite) -had little to do with music. People went to Covent Garden not to listen -to music, but to be seen; just as they went to the Savoy or to the -Carlton to be seen, not to procure nourishment. The Beecham opera is -first and last a matter of music. - -So, Sir Thomas, a few thousand of us take off our hats to you. I think -we should all like to send you every morning a little bunch of violets, -or something equally valueless, but symbolic of the fine things you have -given us, of the silver lining you have disclosed to us in these -overclouded days. - - - - -VODKA AND VAGABONDS - - -Last year London lost two of its quaintest characters--Robertson, of -Australia, that pathetic old man who haunted the Strand and carried in -his hat a clumsily scrawled card announcing that he was searching for -his errant daughter, and "Please Do Not Give Me Money"; and "Spring -Onions," the Thames Police Court poet. - -Now the race of London freaks seems ended. Craig, the poet of the Oval -Cricket ground; Spiv Bagster; the Chiswick miser; Onions and Robertson; -all are gone. Hunnable is confined; and G. N. Curzon isn't looking any -too well. Even that prolific poet, Rowbotham, self-styled "the modern -Homer," has been keeping quiet lately. It took a universal war, though, -to make him nod. - -I met "Spring" (privately, Mr. W. G. Waters) once or twice at Stepney. -He was a vagrant minstrel of the long line of Villon and Cyrano de -Bergerac. His anniversary odes were known to thousands of newspaper -readers. He was the self-appointed Laureate of the nation. He -celebrated not only himself, his struggles and successes, but the -pettier happenings of the day, such as the death of a king, the -accession of a king, or the marriage of some royal couple. You remember -his lines on the Coronation of Edward VII:-- - - - The King, His Majesty, and may him Heaven bless, - He don't put no side on in his dress. - For, though he owns castles and palaces and houses, - He wears, just like you and me, coats and waistcoats and trousis. - - -The character of the genial Edward in four lines. Could it have been -better said? - -Not to know Spring argues yourself unknown. He might have stepped from -the covers of Dekker's _Gull's Hornbook_. He was a child of nature. I -can't bring myself to believe that he was born of woman. I believe the -fairies must have left him under the gooseberry--no, under the laurel -bush, for he wore the laurel, the myrtle, and the bay as one born to -them. He also, on occasion, wore the vine-leaf; and surely that is now -an honour as high as the laurel, since all good fellowship and -kindliness and conviviality have been sponged from our social life. We -have been made dull and hang-dog by law. I wonder what Spring would have -said about that law in his unregenerate days--Spring, who was "in" -thirty-nine times for "D. and D." He would have written a poem about it, -I know: a poem that would have rung through the land, and have brought -to camp the numerous army of Boltists, Thresholdists, and Snortists. - -Oh, Spring has been one of the boys in his time, believe me. But in his -latter years he was dull and virtuous; he kept the pledge of teetotalism -for sixteen years, teetotalism meaning abstention from alcoholic -liquors. This doesn't mean that he wasn't like all other teetotalers, -sometimes drunk. The pious sages who make our by-laws seem to forget -that it is as easy to get drunk on tea and coffee as on beer; the only -difference being that beer makes you pleasantly drunk, and tea and -coffee make you miserably drunk. - -If you knew Spring in the old days, you wouldn't have known him towards -the end--and I don't suppose he would have known you. For in his old age -he was a Person. He was odd messenger at Thames Police Court. In -November, 1898 Spring, who was then the local reprobate, took to heart -the kindly admonitions of Sir John Dickinson, then magistrate at Thames, -and signed the pledge of total abstinence. Ever afterwards, on the -anniversary of that great day. Spring would hand to the magistrate a -poem in celebration of the fact that he had "kept off it" for another -year. - -I visited Spring just before his death in his lodging--lodging stranger -than that of any Montmartre poet. - -The Thames Police Court is in Arbour Square, Stepney, and Spring lived -near his work. Through many mean streets I tracked his dwelling, and at -last I found it. I climbed flights of broken stairs in a high forbidding -house. I stumbled over steps and unexpected turns, and at last I stood -with a puffy, red-faced, grey-whiskers, stocky old fellow, in a -candle-lit garret whose one window looked over a furtively noisy court. - -It was probably his family name of Waters that drove him to drink in his -youth, since when, he has been known as the man who put the tea in -"teetotal." In his room I noticed a bed of nondescript colour and -make-up, a rickety chest of drawers (in which he kept his treasures), -two doubtful chairs, a table, a basin, and bits of food strewn -impartially everywhere. A thick, limp smell hung over all, and the place -seemed set a-jigging by the flickering light of the candle. There I -heard his tale. He sat on the safe chair while I flirted with the other. - -It was on the fortieth occasion that he yielded to Sir John Dickinson's -remonstrances and signed the pledge, and earned the respect of all -connected with that court where he had made so many appearances. All -through that Christmas and New Year he had, of course, a thin time; it -was suffocating to have to refuse the invitation: "Come on, -Spring--let's drink your health!" But what did Spring do? Did he yield? -Never. When he found he was thirsty, he sat down and wrote a poem, and -by the time he had found a rhyme for Burton, the thirst had passed. -Then, too, everybody took an interest in him and gave him work and -clothes, and so on. Oh, yes, it's a profitable job being a reformed -vagabond in Stepney. - -He was employed on odd messages and errands for the staff at Thames -Police Court, and visited the police-stations round about to do similar -errands, such as buying breakfast for the unfortunates who have been -locked up all night and are about to face the magistrate. Whatever an -overnight prisoner wants in the way of food he may have (intoxicants -barred), if he cares to pay for it, and Spring was the agile fellow who -fetched it for him; and many stray coppers (money, not policemen) came -his way. - -All these things he told me as I sat in his mephitic lodging. Spring, -like his brother Villon, was a man of all trades; no job was too "odd" -for him to take on. Holding horses, taking messages from court to -station, writing odes on this and that, opening and shutting doors, and -dashing about in his eightieth year just like a newsboy--Spring was -certainly a credit to Stepney. On my mentioning that I myself made songs -at times, he dashed off the following impromptu, as I was falling down -his crazy stairs at midnight:-- - - - Oh, how happy we all should be, - If none of us ever drank anything stronger than tea. - For how can a man hope to write a beautiful song - When he is hanging round the public-houses all day long? - - -"Spring Onions" apart, Stepney is a home for all manner of queer -characters, full of fire and salt; from Peter the Painter, of immortal -memory, to those odd-job men who live well by being Jacks of all trades, -and masters of them, too. - -There are my good friends, Johnny, the scavenger, Mr. 'Opkinson, the -cat's-meat man, 'Erb, the boney, Fat Fred, who keeps the baked-potato -can, and that lovable personality "My Uncle Toby," gate-man at one of -the docks. - -There's 'Orace, too, the minder. Ever met him? Ever employed him? -Probably not, but if you live near any poor market-place, and ever have -occasion for his services, I cordially recommend him. - -'Orace is the best minder east of the Pump. What does he mind? Your -business, not his. Haven't you ever seen him at it in the more homely -quarters? At a penny a time, it's good hunting; and 'Orace is the only -man I know who blesses certain recent legislation. - -His profession sprang from the Children Act, which debarred parents from -taking children into public-houses. Now, there are thousands of -respectable couples who like to have a quiet--or even a noisy--drink on -market-night; and the effect of the Act was that they had to go in -singly, one taking a drink while the other stood outside and held the -baby. - -There was 'Orace's opportunity, and he took it. Why not let father and -mother take their drink together, while 'Orace sang lullabies to his -Majesty? - -Admirable idea. It caught on, for 'Orace has a way with babies. He can -talk baby guff by the hour, and in the whole of his professional career -he has never had to mind a baby that did not "take" to him on sight. - -The fee is frequently more than a penny. If the old dad wants to stay -for a bit, he will stand 'Orace a drink (under the rose) and a pipe of -'baccy. Sundays and holidays are his best days. He selects his -public-house, on the main road always, and works it all day. Often he -has five or six kiddies at a time to protect; and he gave me a private -tip towards success as a "minder": always carry a number of bright -things in your pockets--nails, pearl buttons, bits of coloured chalk, -or, best of all, a piece of putty. - -Outside his regular pitch, the public-house owns a horse-trough, but as -no horses now draw up, the trough is dry, and in this he places his -half-dozen or so proteges, out of danger and as happy as you please. - -Then there's Artie, the copper's nark. What shall be said of Artie? -Shall I compare him to a summer's day? No, I think not; rather to a -cobwebbed Stepney twilight. I don't commend Artie. Indeed, I have as -little regard for him as I have for those poisonous weeds that float on -the Thames near Greenwich at flood. He is a thoroughly disagreeable -person, with none of the acid qualities of the really bad man or the -firelight glow of commonplace sinners like ourselves. He is incapable of -following any other calling. He has been, from boyhood, mixed up with -criminal gangs, but he has not the backbone necessary for following them -on their enterprises. Always he has wanted to feel safe; so he cringes -at the feet of officialism. He is hated by all--by the boys whose games -he springs and by the unscrupulous police who employ him. His rewards -are small: a few pence now and then, an occasional drink, and a tolerant -eye towards his own little misbehavings. - -Often the police are puzzled as to how Artie gets his information. If -you were to ask him, he would become Orientally impassive. - -"Ah, you'd like to know, wouldn't yer?" - -But the truth is that he does not himself know. In a poor -district--Walworth, Hoxton, or Notting Dale--everybody talks; and it is -in these districts that Artie works. He is useless in big criminal -affairs; he can only gather and report information on the petty doings -of his associates. The moment any small burglary is planned, two or -three people know about it, for the small burglar is always maladroit -and ill-instructed in his methods, and is bound to confide in some one. -Artie is always about like a predatory bird to snatch up crumbs of other -people's business. - -Are you married, and were you married at a Registry Office? If so, it's -certain that you've met my dear old friend. Stepney Syd, the -Congratulator, one of our most earnest war-workers; as "unwearied" as -Lady Dardy Dinkum. - -Congratulations, spoken at the right moment, in the right way, to the -right people, are a paying proposition. The war has made no difference -in the value of those mellifluous syllables, unless it be in an upward -direction. It's a soft job, too. Syd never works after three in the -afternoon. He cannot, because his work is the concluding touch to the -marriage service. It consists in hanging about registry-offices--that in -Covent Garden is very popular with young people in a hurry--and waiting -until a cab arrives with prospective bride and bridegroom. When they -leave, Syd is there to open the door for them, and respectfully offer -felicitations; and so fatuous and helpless is man when he has taken a -woman for life that he dare not ignore this happy omen. - -Thus, Syd comes home every time on a good thing, and, by careful -watching of the weekly papers in the Free Library, and putting two and -two together, he contrives, like some of our politicians, to anticipate -events, and to be where the good things are. - -Strolling round Montagu Street the other night, I met, in one of the -little Russian cafes, a man who pitched me a tale of woe--a lean, -ferrety little man, with ferrety eyes and fingers that urged me to -button my overcoat and secure all pockets. - -But I was shocked to discover that he was an honest man. Diamonds and -honesty seldom walk hand-in-hand, and precious stones and virtue do not -yet publicly kiss each other; and he talked so much of diamonds that my -first apprehensions were perhaps justified. I learnt, however, that his -was a sad case. He was a diamond-cutter by trade, and in those war days -one might as usefully have diamonds in Amsterdam (as Maudi Darrell's -song went) as have them in London. - -I had not before met a man who so casually juggled with the symbols of -revue-girlhood, so I bought him some more vodka and tea-and-lemon, and -led him on to talk. Stones to the value of L20,000 passed through his -hands every day, but none of them stuck. This fact greatly refreshed my -dimming faith in human nature, until he qualified it by adding that it -wasn't worth a cutter's while to steal. Every worker in the trade is -known to every branch, and he would have no second chance. - -Apprenticeship to the trade of diamond-cutting costs L200: and, once out -of his indentures, the apprentice must join the Union, for it would be -useless for him, however proficient in his business, to attempt to -obtain a post without his Union ticket. - -The diamond-mechanic earns anything from L3 to L8 per week. The work -calls for a very considerable knowledge of the characters of stones, for -very deft fingers, and for exceptionally shrewd judgment; since every -diamond or brilliant, however minute, has sixty-four facets, each of -which has to be made and polished on a lathe. - -The stones are handed out in the workshop practically haphazard, and in -the event of the loss of a stone, no disturbance is caused. The staff -simply look for it; the floor of the shop is swept up with a fine broom, -and the dust sifted until it is found. The explanation of this laxity -is the International Diamond Cutters' Union. - -In the process of diamond-cutting, of course, the stone loses about 60 -per cent. of its weight; and the cutter told me that the filings that -come from the stone, mixed with the oil of the lathe, make the finest -lubricant for a razor-strop. The making of his smooth cheeks was the -perfect razor sharpened with diamond filings! - -Before we parted, he showed me casually a green diamond. This is the -most rare form of stone, and there are only six known examples in the -world. No, he didn't steal it. It had just been handed to him for -setting, and he was carrying it in his waistcoat-pocket in the careless -manner of all stone-dealers. - -After he and a sure thousand pounds had vanished into the night, I sat -for awhile in the cafe listening to the chatter of the cigarette-girls -of the quarter. - -It was all of war. Of Stefan, who had been repatriated; of Abramovitch, -who had evaded service by bolting to Ireland with a false green form for -which he had paid L100; of Sergius, who had been hiding in a cellar. - -When one thinks of cigarette-girls one thinks at once of Marion -Crawford's _Cigarette-maker's Romance_ and of Martin Harvey's -super-sentimental performance in that play, so dear to the Streatham -flapper. But Sonia Karavitch, though soaked in the qualities of her -race--dark beauty, luxurious curls, brooding temper, and spiritual -melancholy--would, I fear, repel those who only know her under the -extravagantly refining rays of the limelight. But those who love -humanity in the raw will love her. - -Sonia Karavitch is seventeen. She wears a black frock, with many sprigs -of red ribbon at her neck and in her raven hair. Her fingers are stained -brown with tobacco; but, though she has heavy eyes and lounges -languorously, like a drowsy cat in the sunshine, she works harder than -most other factory-girls. - -From six o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night she is at -her table, rolling by the thousand those hand-made cigarettes which -command big prices in Piccadilly. When she speaks she has a lazy voice -with a curious lisp, and it is full of sadness. - -Yet she is not sad. She has a pleasant little home in one of the big -tenements, where she lives with her mother and little brother, and, in -her own demonstrative way, is happy. The harder she works, the more -money there is for luxuries for the little brother. Often of an evening -her friends come home with her, and drink tea-and-lemon with her, and -make music. - -Sonia Karavitch is very shy, and never mixes with the folk who are not -of her own colony. She was born in Stepney of Russian parents, and she -never goes out of Stepney. And why should she? For in the half-dozen -streets where she lives her daily life she can speak the language of her -parents, can buy clothes such as her mother wore in Odessa, and can find -all those little touches that mean home to the homeless or the exiled. - -Every morning she goes straight to the factory; at noon she goes home to -dinner; and in the evening she goes straight home again. Sometimes on -Saturday afternoons--which is her Sunday, for Sonia is of Jewish -faith--she takes a walk in Whitechapel High Street, because, you see, -there is much life in Whitechapel High Street; there are her -compatriots, and there are street-organs, and violets are a penny a -bunch. - -When she has had a good week she sometimes takes her mother and brother -for kvass to one of the many Russian restaurants in Osborn Street and -Little Montagu Street. - -Sometimes you see Sonia Karavitch at a table, sipping her tea, and -listening to the talk, and you may wonder why that sad, far-away look in -her eyes. She is not in Stepney. Her soul has flown to her native -land--to the steppes, to the cold airs of Russia, whither a certain -Russian lad, who used to work by her side in the cigarette factory in -Osborn Street, was dispatched by a repatriation order. - -But then she remembers mother and little brother, and stops her -dreamings, and hurries on to work. - -Many wild folk have sat in these cafes and discoursed on the injustices -of civilization; and at one time private presses in the neighbourhood -gave forth inflammatory sheets bearing messages from international -warriors in the cause of freedom. - -If ever you are tired of the solemn round of existence, don't take a -holiday at the seaside, don't go to the war. Edit an anarchist -news-sheet, and your life will be full of quick perils and alarms. - -Another of my Stepney friends is Jane, the flower-girl, who tramps every -day from Stepney to Covent Garden, and sells her stock from a pitch -near Leicester Square. Here's another ardent war-worker. - -Some worthy people may not think that the selling of violets comes -properly under the fine exclusive label of War Work; but these are the -neurotics whose only idea of doing their bit is that of twisting their -soiling fingers about anything that carries a message of grace; who fume -at a young man because he isn't in khaki, and, when he is in uniform, -kill him with a look because he isn't in hospital blue, and, when he is -in hospital, regard him askance because he isn't eager to go back. - -"Flowers!" they snort or wheeze. "Fiddling with flowers in war-time! It -ought to be stopped. Look at the waste of labour. Look at the press on -transport. Will the people never realize," etc. - -Yet, good troglodytes, because the world is at war, shall we then wipe -from the earth everything that links us, however lightly, to God--and -save Germany the trouble? Must everything be lead and steel? Old -Man--dost thou think, because thou art old, that glory and loveliness -have passed away with the corroding of thy bones? Nay, youth shall -still take or make its pleasure; fair girls shall still adorn their -limbs with silks, and flowers shall still be sweet to the nose. - -Old Man--on many occasions when I could get no food--not even -war-bread--the sight and smell of bunches of violets have furnished -sustenance for mind and body. So fill thy belly, if thou wilt, with the -waxy potato; put the Army cheese where the soldier puts the pudding; -shovel into thy mouth the frozen beef and offal that may renew thy -energies for further war-work; but, if there be any grace of God still -left in thee, if there be any virtue, any charity--leave, for those who -are shielding thy senescent body, the flower-girls about Piccadilly -Circus on a May morning. - -"Vi'lerts! Swee' Vi'lerts! Pennyer bunch!" - -Good morning, Jane! How sweet you and your violets look in the tangle of -traffic that laces and interlaces itself about Alfred Gilbert's Mercury. - -Morning by morning, fair or foggy, she stands by the fountain; and if -you give her more than a passing glance you will note that her tumbled -hair is of just the right shade of red, and in her eyes are the very -violets that she holds to your indifferent nose, and under her lucent -skin beat the imperious pulses of youth. - -Jane is fourteen, and Jane is always smiling; not because she is -fourteen, but because it's such fun to be alive and to be selling -flowers. Indeed, she looks herself like a little posy, sweet and demure. -Times may be bad, but they are not reflected in Jane's appearance. - -Of education she has only what the Council School gave her in the odd -hours when she choose to attend; of religion she has none, but she has a -philosophy of her own, which, in a sentence, is To Get All The Fun You -Can Out of Things. - -That's why Jane's smile is a smile that certain people look for every -morning as they alight from their bus in the Circus. But you must not -imagine that Jane is good in the respectable sense of the word. Let -anyone annoy her, or try to "dish" her of one of her customers. Then, -when it comes to back-chat, Jane can more than hold her own in the -matter of language; and once I saw an artillery officer's face turn -livid during a discussion between her and a rival flower-girl. - -The war has hit Jane very badly. The young bloods who frequented her -stall in the old days, and bought the most expensive buttonholes every -morning, are now in khaki, and a thoughtless Army Order forbids an -officer to decorate his tunic with a spray of carnations or a moss-rose. - -There are only the old bounders remaining, and their custom depends so -much on such a number of things--the morning's news, the fact that they -are not ten years younger, the weather, and the state of their -digestions. - -Jane always reads the paper before she starts work, because, as she -says, then you know what to expect. She doesn't believe in meeting -trouble halfway, but she believes in being prepared for it. When there's -good news, stout old gentlemen will buy a bunch of violets for -themselves, and perhaps a cluster of blossoms for the typist. But when -the news is bad, nobody is in the mood for flowers. They want to band -themselves together and tell one another how awful it is; which, as Jane -says, is all wrong. - -"If they'd only buy a bunch of violets and stick it in their coats, -other people would feel better by looking at them, and they'd forget the -bad news in the jolly old smell in their buttonhole." - -Yes, Jane's fourteen years have given her much wisdom, and she is doing -as fine war-work as any admiral or field-marshal. - -While in Stepney we mustn't forget good Mrs. Joplin. Mrs. Joplin lives -up a narrow court of menacing aspect, and in her window is a printed -card, bearing the cryptic legend--"Mangling Done Here"--which, to an -American friend of mine, suggested that atrocities of a German kind were -going on downstairs. But I calmed his fears by assuring him that Mrs. -Joplin's business card was a simple indication of her willingness to -receive from her neighbours bundles of newly-washed clothes, and put -them through a machine called a mangle, from which they were discharged -neatly pressed and folded. The remuneration for this service is usually -but a few coppers--beer-money, nothing more; so to procure the decencies -of existence Mrs. Joplin lets her basement rooms for--What's that? Yes, -I daresay you've had a few pewter half-crowns and florins passed on you -lately, but what's that to do with me--or Mrs. Joplin? Do you want me to -suggest that good Mrs. Joplin is a twister; a snide-merchant? Never let -it be said. Good Mrs. Joplin, unlike so many of her neighbours, has -never seen the inside of a police-court, much less a prison. - -Speaking of prisons, it was in Stepney that I was told how to carry -myself if ever I came within the grip of the law on frequent occasions. -The English prison is not an establishment to which one turns with -anticipation of happiness; but there is one prison which is as good as a -home of rest for those suffering from the pain of the world. There is -but one condition of eligibility: you must be a habitual criminal. - -If you fulfilled that condition, you were dispatched to the Camp Hill -Detention Prison in the Isle of Wight. - -A most comfortable affair, this Camp Hill. It stands in pleasant -grounds, near Newport; and the walls are not the grey, scowling things -that enclose Holloway, or Reading, or Wandsworth, but walls of warm -brown stone, such as any good fellow of reputable fame might build about -his mansion. Close-shaven lawns and flower-beds delight the eye, and the -cells are roomy apartments with real windows. The guests do not dine in -solitude; they are marched together to the dining-hall, and there -nourished, not with skilly or stew, with its hunk of bread and a pewter -platter, but with meat and plum-duff, sometimes fish, greenstuffs, and -cocoa. This, of course, in peace-time; the menu has no doubt suffered -variations in these latter days. The tables are covered. After the meal -the good fellows may sit for a few minutes and enjoy a pipe of tobacco, -even as the respectable citizen. A fair number of marks for good -behaviour carries with it the privilege of smoking after the night meal -as well, and one of the most severe punishments is the docking of this -smoking privilege. - -Also, a canteen is provided. Not only do they wallow in luxury; they are -paid for it. Twopence a day is given to each prisoner for exceptional -conduct, and one penny of this may be spent at the canteen. This is by -way of payment for work done--the work being of a much lighter kind than -that given to ordinary "second division" prisoners. In cases where -conduct fulfils every expectation of the authorities, the good lad is -rewarded, every six months, with a stripe. Six stripes entitle the -holder to a cash reward, half of which he may spend, the other half -being banked. The canteen sells sweets, mineral waters, cigarettes, -apples, oranges, nuts etc. Those inclined to the higher forms of -nourishment may use the library. There are current magazines, novels of -popular "healthy" writers (it would be unfair to give their names; they -might not appreciate the epithet), and--uplifting thought--the works of -Spencer, Huxley, Darwin, and some French highbrows. - -On special occasions bioscope shows of an educative kind are given. Oh, -I do love my virtue, but I wish I were a habitual criminal. Why wasn't I -born in Stepney, and born a vagabond? - -Whether the prison is still running on the old lines I know not. Most -likely the British habitual convicts have been served with ejectment -notices to make room for German prisoners. I wouldn't wonder. - - - - -THE KIDS' MAN - - -"I'll learn yeh, y' little wretch!" - -"Oowh! Don't--don't!" - -The lady, savagely wielding a decayed carpet-beater, bent over the -shrinking form of the child--a little storm of short skirts and black -hair. Her arm ached and her face steamed, but she continued to shower -blows wherever she could get them in, until suddenly the storm limply -subsided into a small figure which doubled up and fell. - -A step sounded in the doorway, and the lady looked up, frayed at the -edges and panting. A small, slight man, in semi-official dress, stood -just inside the room, which gave directly on to a byway of Homerton. - -"Na then, Feet--mind yer dirty boots on my carpet, cancher? What's -the----" - -"N.S.P.C.C.," replied Feet. He stooped over the child, lifted her, and -set her on a slippery sofa. "Had my eye on you for some time. Thought -there were something dicky with this child." - -"'Ere, look 'ere--I mean, can't 'er muvver 'it 'er----" - -"Steady, please. Let me warn you----" - -The lady threatened with glances, but Kids' Man met them. - -She fumed. "Ow! You waltz in, do yeh? Well, strikes me yeh'll waltz out -quicker'n yeh came in. 'Ere--Arfer!" Her raucous voice scraped up the -narrow stairway leading from the room, and in answer came a misty voice, -suggesting revelries by night. The lady roared again: "Ar-ferr! Get up -an' come daown. 'Ere's a little swab insultin' yer wife! Kids' Man -insultin' yer wife!" - -Kids' Man made no move, but stood over the sofa with sober face, -ministering to the heavily breathing bundle. Overhead came bumps and a -prayer for delivery from women. - -Then on the lower step of the stairway appeared a symbol of Aurora in -velveteen breeches and a shirt of indeterminate colour. His braces hung -dolefully at the rear as he bleared on the situation. His furry head -moved from side to side. "Wodyeh want me t'do?" - -"Cosh 'im! Insultin' yer wife!" - -He stared. Then his lip moved and he grinned. He hitched up his -trousers, belted them with braces, and expectorated on both hands with -gusto. "Git aout, else I'll split yer faice!" - -No answer. "Righto!" He descended from the stair, and, hands down, fists -closed, chin protruded, advanced on the bending Inspector with that -slow, insidious movement proper to street-fighters. "Won't git aout, -woncher? Grrr--yeh!" - -Kids' Man looked up and met him with a steady stare. But the stare -annoyed him, so he lifted up his fist and smote Kids' Man between the -eyes. Then things happened. He towered over the Inspector. "Want -another?" The Inspector lifted a short and apparently muscleless arm. - -Bk! Aurora reeled as the fist met his jaw, and was followed by a swift -one under the ear. For a moment astonishment seemed to hold him as he -bleared at the slight figure; then he seemed about to burst with wrath; -then he became a cold sportsman. The wife screamed for aid. - -"Aoutside--come on!" He shoved Kids' Man before him into the walk, -which, torpid a moment ago, now flashed with life and movement. Quickly -the auditorium was filled with a moist, unlovely crowd of sloppy rags -and towzled heads. While Kids' Man ministered to his nose, Arfer hitched -his trousers, fingered his shirt-sleeves, and talked in staccato to his -seconds, about a dozen in number. The crowd grunted and grinned. It -seemed evident that Kids' Man was about to get it in the neck. One or -two went to his side as he quietly turned back his sleeves, not for -purposes of encouragement, but merely in order to preserve the correct -niceties of the scrap. - -A light tap on the body from either party, and then more things -happened. "Go it, Arfer, flatten 'im! Cosh 'im! Rip 'im back, Arfer. -Give 'im naughty-naughty, Arfer!" - -But, as the crowd scraped and shuffled this way and that, they gave a -panicky clearing to a spry retreat by Kids' Man. He was done for; Arfer -was chasing him. They capered and chi-iked. Then, with a smart turn, he -landed beautifully on the point, and sent the pursuing Arfer flat to the -ground. The crowd murmured and oathfully exhorted Arfer to fink what he -was doin' of. Flatten the Kids' Man--that was his job. They met again, -and this time the Society received one on the mouth and another on the -nose. He sat heavily down, and his seconds flashed wet handkerchiefs. -The crowd cheered. "'Ad enough?" - -But with a sudden spurt he came up again. His right landed on Arfer's -nose, a natty upper-cut followed it. He got in another with his right, -and pressed his man. The lady screamed, and disregarding the ethics of -the ring, splurged in and seized the Society's coat-tails. But the crowd -begged her to desist. Then the child, who, with the toughness of her -class, had found her legs again, flitted fearfully about the fringe of -the crowd. - -"Wade in, mister! 'It the old woman--fetch 'er a swipe across the -snitch!" - -Now Kids' Man began to take an interest in the affair. Dodging a -swinging blow of his lumbering opponent, he got in a half-arm jab. They -closed, and embraced each other, and swayed, and the crowd chanted "Dear -Old Pals." For a moment they strained; then Kids' Man lifted his enemy -bodily held him, and with a peculiar twist dropped him. He lay still.... - -A murmur of wonder swelled quickly to a broad roar. The crowd surged in, -squirming and hustling. For a moment it seemed that Kids' Man would get -torn. It was just a hair's-breadth question between lynching and -triumphal chairing. The sporting spirit prevailed, and: "Raaay! Good on -yeh, mate! Well done th' S'ciety!" The lads swung in and gathered -admiringly around the victor, who tenderly caressed a damaged beetroot -of a face, while half a dozen helpers impeded each other's efforts to -render first aid to the prostrate Arfer. - -"Where's the blankey twicer? Lemme git 'old of 'im. Lemme git 'old of -'im!" implored the lady. But she was no longer popular, and they hustled -her aside, so that in impotent rage she smote her prostrate husband with -her foot for failing to uphold her honour before a measly little Kids' -Man what she could have torn in two wiv one hand. - -"Well, 'e's gotter nerve, ain't 'e?" - -"Firs' chap ever I knew stand up t'old Arfer. Fac'!" - -"Yerce--'e's--e's gotter nerve!" - -"Tell yeh what I say, boys--three cheers for th' Kids' Man!" - -And as the bruised and discoloured Kids' Man gripped the hand of Orphan -Dora and led her, brave with new importance, from the Walk to -headquarters, a round of beery cheering made sweet music in their rear. - -"Well, fancy a little chap like that.... Well, 'e's gotter blasted -nerve!" - - * * * * * - -The Kids' Man. That is his title--used sometimes affectionately and -sometimes bitterly. He is the children's champion, and often he is met -with curses, and that plea of parenthood which is supposed to justify -all manner of gross and unnameable abominations: "Can't a farver do what -he likes wiv his own child?" - -The Society employs two hundred and fifty Inspectors, whose work is to -watch over the welfare of the children in their allotted district. But, -since most ill-treatment takes place behind closed doors, it is -difficult for an outsider to obtain direct evidence, and neighbours, -even when they know that children are being starved and daily tortured, -are shy of lodging information, lest it may lead to the publicity of the -police-court and the newspapers, and subsequently to open permanent -enmity from the people next whom they have to live. - -The Kids' Man is usually an old Army or Navy man, accustomed to making -himself heard, and able to hold his own. The chief qualities for such a -post are: a real love of children; tact and knowledge of men; and -ability to deal with a hostile reception. It is by no means pleasant, as -you have seen, to pay a warning visit to a house up a narrow alley, -whose inhabitants form something of a clan or freemasonry lodge. - -The motto of the Society, however, is persuasion. Prosecutions are -extremely distasteful, and are only used when all other means have -failed. In any case that comes to the Inspector's knowledge, his first -thought is the children's well-being. If they are being starved, he -provides them with food, clothes, bedding and baths, or sees that the -parish does so without any of the delays incident to parish charity. -Then he has a quiet talk with the parents, and gives a warning. Usually -this is enough. In cases where the neglect is due to lack of work, he is -sometimes an employment agency, and finds work for the father. But, if -necessary, there are more warnings, and then, with great reluctance, an -appearance in court is called for. - -Cruelty is of two kinds--active and passive. The passive cruelty is the -cruelty of neglect--lack of proper food, clothing, sanitation, etc. The -other kind--the active cruelty of a diabolical nature--comes curiously -enough, not so much from the lower, but from the upper classes. It is -seldom that the rough navvy is deliberately cruel to his children; but -Inspectors can tell you some appalling stories of torture inflicted on -children by leisured people of means and breeding. Among their -convictions are doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and many women of position. - -There was one terrible case of a woman in county society--you will -remember her Cornish name--who had been guilty of atrocious cruelty to a -little girl of twelve. The Kids' Man called. The woman maintained that a -mother had a perfect right to correct her own child. She called the -child and fondled it to prove that rumour of tortures was wrong. But the -Kids' Man knows children; and the look in the child's eyes told him of -terrorizing. He demanded a medical examination. - -The case was proved in court. A verdict of "Guilty" was given. And the -punishment for this fair degenerate--L50 fine! The punishment for the -Kids' Man was a kind of social ostracism. There lies the difficulty of -the work. The woman's position had saved her. - -The Kids' Man needs to have his eyes open everywhere and at every time -for signs of suffering among the little ones. And often, where a father -won't listen to advice from him, he is found amenable to suggestions -from Mrs. Inspector. - -In every big town in this country you will find the N.S.P.C.C. bureau, -but, in spite of their efforts, too much cruelty is going on that might -be stopped if the British people, as a race, were not too fond of -"minding their own business" and shutting their eyes to everyday evils. - -If you still think England a Christian and enlightened country, you had -better accompany an N.S.P.C.C. man on his daily round. Before you do so, -inspect the record at their offices. Read the verbatim reports of some -of their cases. Look at their "museum" which Mr. Parr, the secretary, -will show you; a museum more hideous than any collection of inquisition -relics or than anything in the Tower. You will then know something of -the hideous conditions of child-life in "this England of ours," and you -will be prepared for what you shall see on your tour with the Kids' Man. - - - - -CROWDED HOURS - - -What does the Cockney's mind first register when, far from home, he -visualizes the London that he loves with the casual devotion of his -type? To the serious tourist London is the shrine of England's history; -to the ordinary artist, who sees life in line and colour, it is a city -of noble or delicate "bits"; to the provincial it is a playground; to -the business man a market; but to the Cockney it is one big club, -odourous of the goodly fellowship that blossoms from contact with -human-kind. - -"Far from the madding crowd" may express the longings of the modern -Simeon Stylites, but your Cockney is no Simeon. He doesn't pray to be -put upon an island where the crowds are few. The thicker the crowd, the -more elbows that delve into his ribs, the hotter the steam of -human-kind, the happier he is. Far from the madding crowd be blowed! -Man's place, he holds, is among his fellows; and he sniffs with contempt -at this widespread desire to escape from other people. To him it is a -sign of an unhealthy mind, if not pure blasphemy. - -So, when he thinks of London, he does not think of a city of palaces, or -serene architectural triumphs; of a huckster's mart or a playground. At -the word "London" he sees people: the crowds in the Strand, in Walworth -Road, Lavender Hill, Whitechapel Road, Camden Town High Street. - -Your moods may be various, and London will respond. You may work, you -may idly dream away the hours, or you may actively enjoy yourself in -play; but if you wish that supreme enjoyment--the enjoyment of other -people--then London affords opportunities in larger measure than any -city that I know. - -I discovered the magic and allure of crowds when I was fourteen years -old and worked as office-boy in those filthy alleys marked in the Postal -Directory as "E.C." Streets and crowds became my refreshment and -entertainment then, and my palate is not yet blunted to their savour. I -do not want the flowery mead or the tree-covered lane or the -insect-ridden glade--at least, not for long; and I hate that dreadful -hollow behind the little wood. Give me six o'clock in the evening and a -walk from the City to Oxford Circus, through the soft Spring or the -darkling Autumn, with festive feet whispering all around you, and your -heart filled with that grey-green romance which is London. - -Once out of Newgate Street and across Holborn Viaduct I was happy, for I -was, so to speak, in a foreign country; so wholly different were the -people of Holborn from the people of Cheapside. The crowds of the City -had always to me, a mean, craven air about them. They walked homeward -with lagging steps and worn faces. They seemed always preoccupied with -paltry problems. They carried the stamp of their environment: a dusty -market-place, in which things made by more adept hands and brains are -passed from wholesale place to wholesale place with sorry bargaining on -the odd halfpenny. - -But West and West Central were a pleasuance of the finer essences, and -involuntarily body and soul assumed there a transient felicity of gait. -One walked and thought suavely. There were noble shops, brilliant -theatres, dainty restaurants, highways whose sole business was pleasure, -rent with gay lights and oh! so many delightful people. At restaurant -and theatre doors one might pause pensively and touch finger-tips, as it -were, with rose-leaf grace and beauty and fine comradeship; a refreshing -exercise after encounters with the sordid and the uncouth in Gracechurch -Street. Then, when the hoofs clattered and the motors hooted and the -whistles blew, and streets were drenched with festal light and festal -folk, I was, I felt, abroad. Figure to yourself that you are walking -through the streets of Teheran, or Stamboul, or Moscow, surrounded by -strange bazaars and people who seem to have stepped from some book of -magic so far removed are they from your daily interests. So did I feel -as I walked down Piccadilly. It was suffocating to think that there were -so many streets to explore, so many types to meet and to know. I wanted -then to make heaps and heaps of friends--not, I must confess, for -friendship--but just for the sake of meeting people who did interesting -and gracious things, and for the sake of knowing that I _had_ a host of -friends. The plashing of the fountains in Trafalgar Square, the lights -of the Alhambra and Empire seen through the green trees of Leicester -Square, the procession of 'buses along Holborn and Oxford Streets, the -alluring teashops of Piccadilly and the scornful opulence of the -hotels--these things sank into me and became part of me. - -My way to the City lay through Leicester Square, and the morning crowd -in that quarter bears for me still the same charm. On a bright Spring -day it might be Paris. There is a sense of space and sparkle about it. -The little milliners' girls, in piquant frocks, evoke memories of -Louise, and the crowding curls on their cheeks waft a perfume of -youth-time lyrics, chiming softly against the more strident and -repulsively military garb of the girl porters and doorkeepers. The -cleaners, bustling about the steps of the music-halls, throw -adumbrations of entertainment on the morning streets. People are -leisurely busy in an agreeable way--not the huckstering E.C. way. - -In Piccadilly Circus there is the same sense of light and song among the -crowds emerging from the Tube. The shops are decked in all the colours -of the Maytime, and not one little workgirl but pauses to throw a mute -appeal to the posturing silks and laces and pray that the lily-wristed, -wanton damsel of Fortune will turn a hand in her direction. - -But in the City, as I have said, there is little of this delight to be -found, either at morning, noon or night. The typical crowd of this -district may be seen at London Bridge, where, from eight to half-past -ten in the morning and from half-past five to half-past seven in the -evening, the dispirited toilers swarm to or from work. Indeed, it is not -a crowd: it is a _cortege_, marching to the obsequies of hope and fear. -It is a funeral march of marionettes. Here are no gay colours; no -smiles; no persiflage. All is sombre. Even the typists and the little -workgirls make no effort towards bright raiment; all is dingy and -soiled, not with the clean dirt that hangs about the barges and wharves -on the river, but with the mustiness of old ledgers and letter-files. -Listless in the morning and taciturn in the evening are these people; -and to watch them for an hour from the windows of the Bridge House Hotel -is to suffer an attack of spiritual dyspepsia. For, among them, are men -who have crossed that bridge twice daily for thirty years, walking -always on the same side, always at the same pace, and arriving at the -other end at precisely the same minute. There are men who began that -daily journey with bright boyish faces, clean collars, and their first -bowler hats, brave with the importance of working in the City. Their -hearts were fired with dreams and ambition. They had heard tales of -office-boys who, by industry, had been taken eventually into -partnership. They received their first rise. Later, they achieved the -romantic riches of thirty shillings a week. They made the acquaintance -of a girl in their suburban High Street. They married. And now, at -forty-five, all ambition gone, they are working in the same murky corner -of the same office, and maintaining wife and child on three pounds a -week. Their trousers are frayed and bag at the knees. Their coats are -without nap or grace. Two collars a week suffice. Gone are the shining -dreams. They have "settled down," without being conscious of the fact, -and will make that miserable journey, with other sombre and silent -phantoms, until the end. Verily, the London Bridge crowd of respectables -is the most tragic of all London crowds, and the bridge itself a _via -dolorosa_. - -I do not know why work in the City should produce a more deadening -effect on the souls of the workers than work in other quarters, but the -fact that it does is recognized by all students of Labour conditions. I -have worked in all quarters, and have noticed a curious change of -outlook when I moved from the City to Fleet Street, or from Fleet -Street to Piccadilly. You shall notice it, too, in the faces of the -lunch-time crowds. East of St. Paul's, the note is apathy. Coming -westward, just to Fleet Street, you perceive a change. Here boys and -girls, men and women, seem to take an interest in things; one -understands that they like their work. They do not regard it as a mere -routine, to be dragged through somehow until the clock releases them. - -A similar study in crowd psychology awaits you at the Tube stations in -the early hours of the evening, when the rush is on. With elbows wedged -into your ribs, and strange hot breaths pouring down your neck, you need -all the serenity you have stored against such contingencies; and the -attitude of the other people about you can mitigate your distress or -enhance it. The City and South London crowd is not the kind of crowd -that can bear its own troubles cheerfully, or help others to bear -theirs. I would never wish to go on a day's holiday with any of its -people. Their composite frame of mind is one of weak anger, expressive -of "Why isn't Something Done? What's the use of going on like this?" - -More comely is the St. James's Park or Westminster crowd. From five to -half-past six these stations receive a steady stream of sweet and merry -little girls from the mushroom Government Departments that have spawned -all about this quarter. It is girls, girls, girls, all the way, with the -feeble and the aged of the male species toiling behind. - -On the Bakerloo you find a crowd that is--well, "rorty" is the only -word. The people here are mostly southbound for the Elephant and Castle; -and you know the Elephant and Castle and its warm, impetuous life. There -are bold youths who have not fallen, like their fathers, to the cajolery -of a collar-and-cuff job in the City, but have taken up the work that -offers the best pecuniary reward. Grimy youths they are, but full of -vitality, and they pour down the staircase in a Niagara of humanity. - -An excellent centre for observing the varying moods of the evening crowd -is Villiers Street, that gentle slope from which you may reach Charing -Cross Station, the Hampstead Tube, the District Railway, or the -Embankment trams. It is a finely mixed company, for, as any Londoner -will tell you, the residents of the hundred suburbs differ from one -another in manner, accent and appearance, even as the natives of -different continents. Those who are using the Hampstead Tube are -sharply marked from those who are taking the Embankment car to Clapham -Junction; while those who are journeying on the South-Eastern to Croydon -have probably never heard of Upton Park, whither the District will carry -others. There are well-dressed people and ill-dressed people; some who -are going home to soup, fish, a _souffle_ and coffee, with wine and -liqueurs; and some who are going home to "tea," at about eight -o'clock--bread-and-margarine and bloater paste, with a pint of tea, or, -occasionally, a bit of tripe and onions. There are people in a mad -hurry, and others who move in aloof idleness. And above them all stand -the stalwart Colonials, waiting until 6.30, when the bars shall open, -airily inspecting the troops of girls and comparing notes. - -"Say now, jes' watch here. Here comes a real Fanny." - -"Ah, gwan. I ain' got no time for Fannies. I finished wid 'em. Gimme -beer, every time." - -I have often wanted to make a song of Villiers Street, but I have never -been able to catch just the essence of its atmosphere. I am sure, -though, that the modern orchestra offers opportunities for one of our -new composers to embrace it in an overture. No effort has been made, so -far as I know, to interpret in music the noisy soul of the London -crowds. Elgar's "Cockaigne" overture and Percy Grainger's "Handel in the -Strand" were both retrospective in spirit, and the real thing yet -remains to be done. It has been done on the Continent by Suppe -("Morning, Noon and Night in Vienna"), by Sibelius in his "Finlandia," -by Massenet in his "Southern Town," and by Dvorak in "Carneval Roman." I -await with eagerness a "Morning, Noon and Night at Charing Cross," -scored by a born Cockney. - - - - -SATURDAY NIGHT - - -The origins of Saturday night, as a social institution, are obscure. No -doubt a little research would discover them to the earnest seeker, but I -am temperamentally averse from anything like research. It is tedious in -process and disappointing in result. Successful research means grasping -at the reality and dropping the romance. - -The outstanding fact about Saturday night is that it is an exclusively -British institution. Neither America nor the Continent knows its -precious joys. It is one of the few British institutions that reconcile -me to being an islander. It is a festival that is observed with the same -casual ritual in the London slums and in Northumberland mining villages; -in Scottish hills and in the byways of the Black Country; in Camden Town -High Street and in the hamlets of the Welsh marches. Certainly, so long -as my aged elders can carry their memories, and the memories of their -fathers before them, Saturday night has been a festival recognized in -all homely homes. Strange that it has only once been celebrated in -literature. - -It is, as it were, a short grace before the meal of leisure offered by -the Sabbath; a side-dish before the ample banquet; a trifling with the -olives of sweet idleness. On Saturday night the cares of the week are, -for a space, laid aside, and men and women gather with their kind for -amiable chatter and such mild conviviality as the times may afford. Then -the bonds of preoccupation are loosed, and men escape for dalliance with -the lighter things of life. Then the good gossips in town and country -take their sober indulgence in the social amenities. In village street, -or raucous town highway, they will pause between shops to greet this or -that neighbour and discuss affairs of mutual concern. - -On Saturday night is kept the festival of the String Bag, one of those -many rigid feasts of the people that find no place in the Kalendar of -the Prayer Book. Go where you will about the country on this night, and -you will witness the celebration of this good domestic saint by the -cheerful and fully choral service of Shopping. Go to East Street -(Walworth Road); to St. John's Road (Battersea); to Putney High Street; -to Stratford Broadway; to Newington Butts; to Caledonian Road; to Upper -Street (Islington); to Norton-Folgate; to Kingsland Road; to Salmon -Lane (Limehouse); to Mare Street (Hackney); to the Electric Avenue -(Brixton); to Powis Street (Woolwich); to the great shopping centres of -provincial cities or to the easier market-places of the rural district, -and you will find this service lustily in progress; the shops lit with a -fresh glamour for this their special occasion. You will taste a -something in the air--a sense of well-being, almost of carnival--that -marks this night from other nights of the week. You will see Mother -hovering about the shops and stalls, her eye peeled for the elusive -bargain, while Father, or one of the children, stands away off with the -bag; and when the goodwife has achieved all that she set out to do, and -the string bag is distended like an overfed baby, then comes the -crowning joy of the feast, when the shoppers slip together into the -private bar of the "Green Dragon" or the "White Horse," and compare -notes with other Saturday-nighters and condemn the beer. - -Saturday night is also, in millions of homes, Bath Night; another of the -pious functions of this festival; and for this ceremony the attendance -of the heads of the household is compulsory. Then the youngsters, -according to their natures, howl with delight or alarm as their turn -for the tub approaches. They will be scrubbed by Mother and dried by -Father; and when the whole brood is well and truly bathed and packed off -to bed, the elders will depart with the string bag, and perchance, if -shopping be expeditiously accomplished, take it, well-filled, to the -second house of the local Empire or Palace. - -Do you not remember--unless you were so unfortunate as to be brought up -in what are called well-to-do surroundings--do you not remember the -tingling delight that was yours when, to ensure correct behaviour during -the week, the prospect was dangled before you of going shopping on -Saturday night? Many Saturday nights do I recall, chiefly by association -with these shopping expeditions, when I was permitted to carry the -string bag; and the shopping expeditions again are recalled through the -agency of smell. Never does my memory work so swiftly as when assisted -by the nose; I am a bit of a dog in that way. When I catch the hearty -smell of a provision shop, I leap back twenty-five years and I see the -tempestuous Saturday-evening lights of Lavender Hill from the altitude -of three-foot-six; and I remember how I would catalogue shop smells in -my mind. There were the solemn smell of the furniture shop; the -wholesome smell of the oilshop; the pungent smell of the chemist's; the -potent smell of the "Dog and Duck", where I received my weekly -heart-cake; the stiff smell of the linen-drapers'; the overpowering -odour of the boot-shop, and the aromatic perfume of the grocer's; all of -which, in one grand combination, present the smell of Saturday night: a -smell as sharp and individual as the smell of Sunday morning or the -smell of early-closing afternoon in the suburbs. If Rip van Winkle were -to awake in any town or village on Saturday night, he would need no -calendar to name for him the day of the week: the smell, the aspect, and -the temper of the streets would surely inform him. - -But lately Saturday night has come under control, and the severe hand of -authority has wrenched away the most of its delight. Not now may the -String Baggers express their individuality in shopping. Having -registered for necessary comestibles at a given shop, they enjoy no more -the sport of bargain-hunting, or of setting rival tradesmen in cheerful -competition. Not now may the villagers crowd the wayside station for -their single weekly railway trip to the neighbouring town, where was -larger scope for the perfect shopper than the native village could -afford. No more may the earnest London Saturday-nighter journey by tram -or bus to outlying markets because the quality of the meat was better in -that district than in his own, or the price of eggs a penny -lower--though, if the truth be known, these facts were mostly proffered -as excuse for the excursion. No more do residents of Brixton travel to -Clapham Junction for their Sunday stores, or the elegant ones of -Streatham slink guiltily to Walworth Road. No more is Hampstead seen -chaffering at the stalls of Camden Town, or Bayswater struggling -gallantly about the shops of the Edgware Road and Kilburn. - -The main function of Saturday night has died a dismal death. Still, the -social side remains. Shopping of a sort still has to be done. One may -still meet one's cronies in the market streets, and compare the bulk and -quality of one's ration of this and that, and take a draught of insipid -ale at the "Blue Pigeon", and talk of the untowardness of the times. But -half of the savour is gone out of the week's event; and it is well that -the Scots peasant made his song about it before it was controlled. - - - - -RENDEZVOUS - - -Although London possesses a thousand central points suitable for a -street rendezvous, Londoners seem to have decided by tacit agreement to -use only five of these for their outdoor appointments. They are: Charing -Cross Post Office, Leicester Square Tube, Piccadilly Tube, under the -Clock at Victoria, and Oxford Circus Tube; and I have never known my -friends telephone me for a meeting and fix a rendezvous outside this -list. Indeed, I can now, by long experience, place the habits and -character of casual acquaintances who wish to meet me, from their choice -among these places. - -Thus, a Charing Cross Post Office appointment means a pleasure -appointment. Here, at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, wait the bright -girls and golden boys, their faces, like living lamps, shining through -the cloud of pedestrians as a signal for that one for whom they wait. -And, though you be late in keeping the appointment, you may be certain -that the waiting party will be in placid mood. There is so much to -distract and delight you on this small corner. There are the bustle of -the Strand and the stopping buses; the busy sweep of Trafalgar Square, -so spacious that its swift stream of traffic suggests leisure; the hot -smell of savouries rising from the kitchens of Morley's Hotel; and the -cynical amusement to be drawn from a study of the meetings and -encounters of other waiting folk. Hundreds of appointments have I kept -at Charing Cross Post Office. I have met soldier-friends there, after an -absence of three years. I have met cousins and sisters and aunts, and -damsels who stood not in any of these relations. And I have met the Only -One there, many, many times; often happily; often in trepidation; and -sometimes in lyrical ecstasy, as when a quarrel and a long parting have -received the benison of reconciliation. Now, I can never pass the Post -Office without a tremor, for its swart, squat exterior is, for me, -bowered with delicious thrills. - -Never keep an appointment under the Clock at Victoria. A meeting here is -fatal to the sweetness of the intercourse that is to follow. Always he -or she who arrives first will be peevish or irate by the time the second -party turns up; for Victoria Station, with its lowering roof, affects -you with a frightful sense of being shut in and smothered. Turn how you -will, sharply or gently, and you cannon with some petulant human, and, -retiring apologetically from him, you impale your kidney region on some -fool's walking-stick or umbrella. That fool asks you to look where -you're going, and then he gets his from a truck-load of luggage. You -laugh--bitterly. After three minutes of waiting in that violet-tinted -beehive, you loathe your fellow-man; you loathe the entire animal -kingdom. You "come over in one of them prickly 'eats." Your nerves flap -about you like bits of bunting, and the new spring suit that set in such -fine lines seems fit only for scaring birds. Then your friend arrives, -and God help him if he's late! - -I have watched these Victoria appointments many times while waiting for -my train. The first party to the contract arrives, glances at the clock, -and strolls to the bookstall, cheerfully swinging stick or umbrella. He -strolls back to the clock, glances, compares it with his watch. Hums a -bar or two. Coughs. A flicker of dismay shades his face. Then a -handicapped runner for the 6.15 crashes violently against him in -avoiding a platoon of soldiers, and knocks his hat over his eyes and -his stick ten yards away. When the great big world ceases turning and he -finds a voice, the offender has gone. The next glance he shoots at the -clock is choleric. A slight prod from an old lady who wishes to find the -main booking-office produces a spout of fury; and the comedy ends with a -gestic departure, in the course of which he gets a little of his own -back on other of his species. His final glance at the clock is charged -with the pure essence of malevolence. - -How much more gracious is an appointment in the great resounding hall of -Euston, though this is mainly a travellers' rendezvous and is seldom -used for general appointments. Here, cloistered from the rush and roar -of the station proper, yet always with a cheerful sense of loud -neighbourhood, the cathedral mood is induced. You become benign, Gothic. -There are pleasant straw seats. There are writing-tables with real ink. -There are noble photographs of English beauty-spots, and--oh, heaps of -dinky little models of railway trains and Irish Channel steamers which -light up when you drop pennies in the slots. Vast, serene and episcopal -is this rendezvous--it always reminds me of the Athenaeum Club; and, -however protracted your vigil, it showers upon you something of its -quality; so that, though your friend be twenty minutes late, you still -receive him affably, and talk in conversational tones of this and of -that, instead of roaring the obvious like a baseball fan, as Victoria's -hall demands. You may even make subtle epigrams at Euston, and your -friend will take their point. I'd like to hear someone try to convey a -fine shade of meaning in Victoria. - -Oxford Circus Tube I register as the meeting-ground of the suburban -flapper and the suburban shopping mamma. Its note is little swinging -skirts, and artful silk stockings, and shining curls, that dance to the -sober music of the matron's rustling satin. The waiting dames carry -those dinky little brown-paper bags, stamped with the name of some -Oxford Street draper, at whose contents the idler may amuse himself by -guessing--a ribbon, a camisole, a flower-spray for a hat, gloves, or -those odd lengths of cloth and linen which women will buy--though Lord -knows to what esoteric use they put them. Hither come, too, those lonely -people who, through the medium of "Companionship" columns or -Correspondence Circles, have found a congenial soul. Why they choose -Oxford Circus I don't know, but they are always to be seen there. You -may recognize the type at first glance. They peer and scan closely every -arrival, for, though correspondence has introduced them to the other -soul, they have not yet seen the body, and they are searching for -someone to fit the description that has been supplied; as thus: "I am of -medium height and shall be wearing a black hat, trimmed with Michaelmas -daisies, and a fawn macintosh," or "I am tall, and shall be wearing a -grey suit and black soft hat and spectacles, and will carry a copy of -the _Buff Review_ in my hand." One is pleased to speculate on the result -of the meeting. Is it horrible disillusion, or does the flint find its -fellow-flint and produce the true spark? Do they thereafter look happily -upon Oxford Circus Tube, or pass it with a shudder? - -The crowd that hovers about the Leicester Square Tube entrances affords -little matter for reflection. It is so obvious. It is so Leicester -Square. It alternately snarls and leers. It never truly smiles; it is so -tired of the smiling business. The loud garb of the women tells its own -tale. For the rest, there are bejewelled black men, a few Australian and -Belgian soldiers, and a few disgruntled and "shopless" actors. I never -accept an appointment at Leicester Square Tube. It puts me off the lunch -or dinner or whatever business is the object of the meeting. It is -ignoble, squalid, with an air of sickly decency about it. - -A few yards further Westward, at Piccadilly Tube, the atmosphere -changes. One tastes the ampler ether and diviner air. It does not, like -Charing Cross Post Office, sing April and May, but rather the mellowness -of August and September. Good solid people meet here; people -"comfortably off," as the phrase goes; people who have lived largely, -but have not lost their capacity for deliberate enjoyment. At meal-times -they gather thickly; quiet, dainty women; obese majors; Government -officials; and that nondescript type that wears shabby, well-cut clothes -with an air of prosperity and breeding. You may almost name the first -words that will be spoken when a couple meet: "Well, where shall we go? -Trocadero, Criterion--or Soho?" There is little hilarity; people don't -"let themselves go" at this rendezvous. They are out for entertainment, -but it is mild, well-ordered entertainment. The note of the crowd is, -"If a thing is worth doing at all, it's worth doing well," even if the -thing is only a hurried lunch or a curfew-rationed theatre. - -Classifying London's meeting-places by their moral atmospheres, I would -mark Charing Cross Post Office as juvenile; Oxford Circus Tube as youth; -Leicester Square Tube as senility; Piccadilly Tube as middle-age; the -Great Hall at Euston as reverend seniority; and Victoria Station--well, -Victoria Station should get a total-rejection certificate. - - - - -TRAGEDY AND COCKNEYISM - - -The Cockney is popularly supposed to stand for the fixed type of the -blasphemous and the cynical in his speech and attitude to life. He is -supposed to jump with hobnailed boots on all things and institutions -that are, to others, sacred. He is supposed to admit no solemnities, no -traditional rites or services, to the big moments of life. - -This is wrong. The Cockney's attitude to life is perhaps more solemn -than that of any other social type, save when he is one of a crowd of -his fellows; and then arises some primitive desire to mock and destroy. -He will say "sir" to people who maintain their carriages or cars in his -own district; but on Bank Holidays, when he visits territories remote -from his home, he will roar and chi-ike at the pompous and the rich -wherever he sees it. - -But the popular theory of the Cockney is most effectively exploded when -he is seen in a dramatic situation or in some moment of emotional -stress. He does not then cry "Gorblimey" or "Comartovit" or some -current persiflage of the day; or stand reticent and monosyllabic, as -some superior writers depict him; but, from some atavistic cause, harks -back to the speech of forgotten Saxon forefathers. - -This trick you will find reflected in the melodrama and the cheap serial -story that are made for his entertainment. It is hostile to superior -opinion, but it is none the less true to say that melodrama does -endeavour to reflect life as it is. When the wronged squire says to his -erring son: "Get you gone; never darken my doors again," he is not -talking a particular language of melodrama. He may be a little out of -his part as a squire; that is not what a father of long social position -and good education would say to a scapegrace son; but it is what an -untaught town labourer would say in such a circumstance; and, as these -plays are written for him, the writers draw their inspiration from his -speech and manners. The programme allure of the Duke of Bentborough, -Lord Ernest Swaddling, Lady Gwendoline Flummery, and so on, is used -simply to bring him to the theatre. The scenes he witnesses, and the -scenes he pays to witness, show himself banishing his son, himself -forgiving his prodigal daughter, with his own attitudes and his own -speech. The illiterate do not quote melodrama; melodrama quotes them. - -Again and again this has been proved in London police-courts. When the -emotions are roused, the Cockney does not pick his words and alight -carefully on something he heard at the theatre last week; nor does he -become sullen and abashed. He becomes violently vocal. He speaks out of -himself. Although he seldom enters a church, the grip of the church is -so tightly upon him that you may, as it were, see its knuckles standing -in white relief when he speaks of solemn affairs. If you ask him about -his sick Uncle John, he will not tell you that Uncle John is dead, or -has "pegged out" or "snuffed it"; such phrases he reserves for reporting -the passing of Prime Ministers, Dukes and millionaires. He will tell you -that Uncle John has "passed away" or "gone home"; that it is a "happy -release"; and, between swigs at his beer, he will give you intimate, but -carefully veiled, details of his passing. He will never speak of the -elementary, universal facts of life without the use of euphemism. A -young unmarried mother is always spoken of as having "got into trouble." -It is never said that she is about to have a baby; she is "expecting." -He never reports that an acquaintance has committed suicide; he has -"done away with himself" or "made a hole in the water." - -At an inquest on a young girl in the Bermondsey district, the mother was -asked when last she saw her daughter. - -"A'Monday. And that was the last time I ever clapped eyes on her, as -Gawd is my witness." - -At another inquest on a Hoxton girl, a young railwayman was called as -witness. Having given his evidence, he suddenly rushed to the body, and -bent over it, and cried loudly:-- - -"Oh, my dove, my dear! My little blossom's been plucked away!" - -In a police-court maternity case, I heard the following from the mother -of the deserted girl, who had lost her case; "Ah, God! an' shall this -villain escape from his crime scot-free?" And in the early days of the -war a bereaved woman created a scene at an evening service in a South -London Church with this audible prayer: "Oh, Gawd, take away this Day of -Judgment from the people, fer the sake of Thy Son Jesus. Amen." - -Again, at Thames Police Court, during a case of theft against a boy of -seventeen, the father was called, and admitted to turning his son from -home when he was fifteen, because of his criminal ways. - -"Yerce, I did send 'im orf. An' never shall 'is foot cross my threshold -until 'e's mended 'is evil ways." - -The same reversion to passionate language may be found in many of the -unreported incidents of battle. I have heard of Cockneys, whose pals -were killed at their side, and of their comment on the affair in the -stress of the moment:-- - -"Old George! I loved old George better'n I loved anything in the world. -I'd 'ave give my 'eart's blood fer George." - -And the cry of a mother at the Old Bailey, when her son was sentenced to -death:-- - -"Oh, take me. Take my old grey 'airs. Let me die in 'is stead."-- - -And here is the extraordinary statement of a girl of fourteen, who, -tired of factory hours and home, ran away for a few days, and then would -not go back for fear of being whipped by her father. At the end of her -holiday she gave herself up to the police on the other side of London -from her home, and this was her statement to them:-- - -"Why can't I go where I want to? I don't do anybody any harm. I knew the -world was good. I got tired of all the monotony, an' the same old thing -every day, an' I wanted to get out. I am. Why bother me? I wonder why I -can't go out and do as I like, so long as I don't do no harm. I thought -the world was so big an' good, but in reality living in it is like being -in a cage. You can't do nothing in this world unless somebody else -consents." - -Strange wisdom from a child of fourteen, spoken in moments of terror -before uniformed policemen in that last fear of the respectable--the -police-station. But it is in such official places that the Cockney loses -the part he is for ever playing--though, like most of us, he is playing -it unconsciously--and becomes something strangely lifted from the airy, -confident materialist of his common moments. The educated man, on the -other hand, brought into court or into other dramatic surroundings, -ceases to be himself and begins to act. The Cockney, normally without -dignity, achieves it in dramatic moments, where the man of position and -dignity usually crumbles away to rubbish or ineptitude. - -Hence, only the wide-eyed writers of melodrama have successfully -produced the Cockney on the stage. True, they dress him in evening -clothes, and surround him with impossible butlers and footmen, but if -you want to probe the Cockney's soul, and cannot probe it at first-hand, -it is to melodrama and the cheap serial that you must turn; not to the -slum stories of novelists who live in Kensington or to the "low-life" -plays of condescending dramatists. - - - - -MINE EASE AT MINE INN - - -When everything in your little world goes wrong; when you can do nothing -right; when you have cut yourself while shaving, and it has rained all -day, and the taxis have splashed your collar with mud, and you receive -an Army notice, post-marked on the outer covering _Buy National War -Bonds Now_--in short, when you are fed up, what do you do? - -To each man his own remedy. I know one man who, in such circumstances, -goes to bed and reads Ecclesiastes; another who goes on an evening jag; -another who goes for a ten-mile walk in desolate country; another who -digs up his garden; another who reads school stories. But my own cure is -to board a London tram-car bound for the outer suburbs, and take mine -ease at a storied sixteenth-century inn. - -Where is this harbour of refuge? No, thank you; I am not giving it away. -I am too fearful that it may become popular and thereby spoiled. I will -only tell you that its sign is "The Chequers"; that it is a -low-pitched, rambling post-house, with cobbled coach-yard, and -ridiculous staircases that twist and wind in all directions, and rooms -where apparently no rooms could be; that it was for a while the G.H.Q. -of Charles the First; and that it is soaked in that ripe, substantial -atmosphere that belongs to places where companies of men have for -centuries eaten and drunken and quarrelled and loved and rejoiced. - -You talk of your galleried inns of Chester and Shrewsbury and Ludlow and -Salisbury, and your thousand belauded old-world villages of the West.... -Here, within a brief tram-ride of London, so close to the centre of -things that you may see the mantle of metropolitan smoke draping the -spires and steeples, is a place as rich in the historic thrill as any of -these show-places. - -But its main charm for me is the goodly fellowship and comfortable talk -to be had in the little smoking-room, decorated with original sketches -by famous black-and-white men who make it their week-end rendezvous. You -may be a newcomer at "The Chequers," but you will not long be lonely -unless your manner cries a desire for solitude. Its rooms are aglow with -all those little delights of the true inn that are now almost -legendary. One reads in old fiction and drama of noble inns and -prodigally hospitable landlords; but I have always found it difficult to -accept these pictures as truth. I have sojourned in so many old inns -about the country, and found little welcome, unless I arrived in a car -and ordered expensive accommodation. It was not until I spent a night at -"The Chequers" that I discovered an inn that might have been invented by -Fielding, and a landlord who is and who looks the true Boniface. - -I had missed the last car and the last train back to town. I wandered -down the not very tidy High Street, and called at one or two of the -hundred taverns that jostle one another in the street's brief length. -The external appearance of "The Chequers" promised at least a -comfortable bed, and I booked a room, and then wandered to the bar. I -felt dispirited, as I always do in inns and hotels; as though I were an -intruder with no friend in the world. I ordered a drink and looked round -the little bar. My company were a police-sergeant in uniform, a -horsey-looking man in brown gaiters, an elderly, saturnine fellow in -easy tweeds, a young fellow in blue overall--obviously an electrician's -mechanic--and a little, merry-faced chap with a long flowing moustache. -I scrutinized faces, and sniffed the spiritual atmosphere of each man. -It was the usual suburban bar crowd, and I assumed that I was in for a -dull time. The talk was all saloon-bar platitudes--_This was a Terrible -War. The rain was coming down, wasn't it? Yes, but the farmers could do -with it. Yes, but you could have too much of a good thing, couldn't you? -Ah, you could never rely on the English climate.... Three shillings a -pound they were. Scandalous. Robbery. Somebody was making some money out -of this war. Ah, there was a lot going on in Whitehall that the public -never heard about...._ So, clutching at a straw, I opened the local -paper, and read about A Pretty Wedding at St. Matthew's, and a -Presentation to Mr. Gubbins, and a Runaway Horse in the High Street, and -a---- - -Then came the felicitous shock. From the horsey man came words that -rattled on my ears like the welcome hoofs of a relief-party. - -"No, it wasn't Euripides, I keep telling you. It was Sophocles," he -insisted. "I know it was Sophocles. I got the book at home--in a -translation. And I see it played some time ago in town. Ask Mr. -Connaught here if I'm not right." He grew flushed as he argued his -rightness. I followed the direction of his nod. Mr. Connaught was the -disgruntled-looking man in tweeds. And Mr. Connaught set down his -whisky, fished in a huge well of a side-pocket, and produced--_OEdipus -Rex_ in the original Greek, and began to talk of it. - -I sank back, abashed at my too previous judgment. Here was a man who, -during the half-hour that I had been sitting there, had talked like a -grocer or a solicitor's clerk--of the obvious and in the obvious way. It -was he who had made the illuminating remarks that there was a lot going -on in Whitehall that we didn't know anything about, and that you could -never rely on the English climate. And now he was raving about -Sophocles, and chanting fragments to the assembled whisky-drinkers. -Tiring of Sophocles, he dived again into the pocket and produced -Aristophanes. - -The talk then became general. The constable, apparently annoyed at so -much Latin and Greek, thrust into the chatter a loud contention that -when a man had finished with English authors, then was time enough to go -to the classics. Give him Boswell's _Johnson_ and _Pepys' Diary_ and a -set of Dickens written in the language of his fathers, to keep on the -dressing-table, within easy reach of the bed, like. The electrician's -mechanic couldn't bother with novels; he was up to the neck just now in -Spencer and Haeckel and Bergson, and if we hadn't read Bergson, then we -ought to: we were missing something. Then somehow the talk switched to -music, and there followed a dissertation by the police-sergeant on -ancient church music and the futility of grand opera, and names like -Palestrina and Purcell and Corelli were thrown about, with a cross-fire -of "Bitter, please, Miss Fortescue"--"Martell, please; just a splash of -soda--don't drown it"--"Have you tried the beer at the -'Hole-in-the-Wall?'--horrible muck"--"Come on--drink up, there, Fred; -you're very slow to-night." - -"D'you know this little thing by Sibelius?" asked the merry fellow; and -hummed a few bars from the _Thousand Seas_. - -"Ah, get away with yer moderns!" snapped the police-sergeant. "This -Debussy, Scriabine, Schonberg and that gang. Keep to the simplicities, I -say--Handel, Bach, Haydn and Gluck. Listen to this;" and he suddenly -drew back from the bar, lifted a mellow voice at full strength, and -delivered "Che Faro" from _Orfeo_; and then took a mighty swig at a pint -tankard and said that it had just that bite that you only get when it's -drawn from the wood. - -It took me some time to pull myself together and sort things out. I -wondered what I had stumbled upon: whether other pubs in this suburb -offered similar intellectual refreshment; whether all the local -tradesmen were bookmen and music-lovers; and how to reconcile the dreary -talk that I had first heard with the enthusiastic and individual -discourse that was now proceeding. I wondered whether it were a dream, -and how soon I should wake up. If it were real, I wondered if people -would believe me if I told them of it. - -But soon I dismissed all speculation, for by a happy chance I was drawn -into the circle. Some discussion having arisen on beer and its varying -quality, a member of the company produced a once-popular American -pamphlet, entitled _Ten Nights in a Bar-Room_; whereupon I handed round -a little brochure of my own, compiled, for private circulation, from -contributions by members of that London rambling Club, "The Blueskin -Gang," and entitled _Ten Bar-Rooms in a Night_. This pleased the -company, and I at once became popular and had to take my part in the -gigantic beer-drinking. Then the merry-faced little fellow slipped away, -and quickly returned to counter my move with an old calf-bound -seventeenth-century book, _The Malt-Worm's Guide_: a description of the -principal London taverns of the period, with notes as to the -representative patrons and the quality of the entertainment, material -and moral, offered by each establishment; every page adorned with -preposterous but captivating woodcuts. - -On my suggesting that "The Blueskin Gang" might compile a similar guide -on the London bars of to-day, each member of the company burst in with -material for such a work. We decided that it would be impossible to -follow the model of _The Malt-Worm's Guide_ for such a work, since the -London taverns of to-day are fast shedding their individual character. -Formerly, one might know certain houses as a printers' bar, a -journalists' bar, a lawyers', and so on. The "Cock," in Fleet Street, -remains a rendezvous for legal gentry, and the taverns between -Piccadilly and Curzon Street are still "used" by grooms and butlers; and -two Oxford Street bars are the unregistered headquarters of the -furniture trade. And do you know the "Steam Engine" in Bermondsey, the -haunt of the South-Eastern Railway men, where gather engine-drivers, -firemen, guards and other mighty travellers? A pleasant house, with just -that touch of uncleanliness that goes with what some people call low -company, and produces a harmony of rough living that is so attractive to -matey men. And the Burton they used to sell in old times--oh, boy--as my -American friends say--even to think of it gives you that gr-rand and -gl-lor-ious feelin'. - -But these places make the full list. The war has largely obliterated -fine distinctions. The taverns of the Strand and its side streets, once -the clubs of the lower Thespians, have become the rendezvous of Colonial -soldiers. The jewellers who once foregathered at the Monico, have been -driven out by French and Belgian military; and Hummum's, in Covent -Garden, into which you hardly dared enter unless you were a market-man, -has become anybody's property. - -While I named the taverns of central London and their pre-war character, -others of the company threw in details of obscure but highly-flavoured -houses in outlying quarters of the city to which their business had at -times occasioned them, with much inside information as to the special -drinks of each establishment and its regular frequenters. I saw at once -that such a work, if produced, would exceed the bulk of Kelly's Post -Office Directory, but the discussion, though of no practical value, gave -me a closer view of the idiosyncrasies of the company. The lover of -Sophocles liked loud, jostling bars, reeking with the odour of crowded -and violent humanity, where you truly fought for your drink; where no -voice could be heard unless your ear were close upon it, and where you -had barely room to crook your elbow: such bars as you find in the poorer -quarters, as seem, at first acquaintance, to be under the management of -the Sicilian Players. The electrician preferred a nice quiet house where -he could sit down--no doubt to think about Bergsonism. The musical -police-sergeant had no preferences in the matter of company or -surroundings; the quality of the beer was all his concern. The -horsey-looking man liked those large, well-kept, isolated suburban bars -where you might find but two or three customers with whom you could have -what he called a Good Old Talk About Things. - -At closing time I discovered that the little merry-faced fellow was the -host; indeed, I had placed him in some such capacity, for his face might -have been preserved on canvas as the universal type of the jovial -landlord. - -"You're staying here, aren't you? Come through to my room for a bit. -Unless you want to get off to bye-bye." - -I didn't want to get off to bye-bye. I wanted to know more of this -comic-opera inn. So I followed him to his private room, and I found it -walled with books--real books, such as were loved by Lamb--_The Anatomy -of Melancholy_, Walker's _Original_, _The Compleat Angler,_ an -Elizabethan Song-book, Descartes, Leopardi, Montaigne, and so on. The -piano in the corner bore an open volume of Mozart's Sonatas; and this -extraordinary Boniface, having "put the bar up," seated himself and -played Mozart and Beethoven and Schumann and Isolde's "Liebestod," and -morsels of Grieg, until three o'clock in the morning, when I climbed to -my room. - -On the way he showed me the King Charles room and the delightful -eighteenth-century mezzotints on the stair-case walls, and the secret -way from the first floor to the yard. From that night our friendship -began. I stayed there the following day and for two days more, and -pulled his books about, and roamed over the many rooms, and met the -company of my first night in the bar. - -I was charmed by the air of intimacy that belongs to that bar, deriving, -I think, from the sweet nature of the host. You may stay at popular inns -or resplendent hotels, and make casual acquaintance in the lounges, and -exchange talk; but it is impossible, in the huge cubic space of such -establishments, to come near to other spirits. You do not meet a man in -town and say: "What? You've stayed at the 'Royal York'? I've stayed -there too," and straightway develop a friendship. But you can meet a -stranger, and say: "What? You know 'The Chequers?' D'you know Jimmy?" -and you fall at once to discussing old Jimmy, the landlord, and you -admit the stranger to the secrets of your heart. - -Jimmy--I hope he won't mind my writing him down as Jimmy; you have only -to look at him to know that he cannot be James or Jim--Jimmy radiates -cheer; whether in his own inn or in other people's. Among his -well-smoked furniture and walls men talk freely and listen keenly. There -is no obscene reticence, no cunning reserve. Unpleasant men would be -miserable at "The Chequers"; they would seek some other biding-place -where self-revelation is kept within diplomatic bounds. - -Believe me, "The Mermaid" was not the end of the great taverns. What -things have we seen done and heard said at the bar of "The Chequers." -What famous company has gathered there on Sunday evenings, artists, -literary men, musicians, philosophers, entering into fierce argument and -vociferous agreement with the local stalwarts. In these troubled times -people are mentally slack. They readily accept mob opinion, to save -themselves the added strain of thinking; and eagerly adopt the attitude -that it is idle to concern oneself with intellectual affairs in these -days; so that there is now no sensible talk to be had in bar or club. -Wherefore, it is a relief to possess one place--and that an inn--where -one may be sure of finding company that will join with relish in serious -talk and put their whole lives in a jest. Such delight and refreshment -do I find at this inn, that scarcely a Saturday passes but I board the -car and glide to "The Chequers" in--well, just beyond the London Postal -District. - - - - -RELICS - - -The turning-out of the crowded drawers of an old bureau or cabinet is -universally known as the prime pastime of the faded spinster; a pastime -in which the starved spirit may exercise itself among delicious -melancholies and wraiths of spent joys. Well, I am not yet faded, and I -am not a spinster; but I have fallen to the lure of "turning out." I -have lately "turned out"--not the musty souvenirs of fifty years ago, -love, fifty years ago, but the still warm fragments of A.D. 1912. - -The other day, while searching irately in my fumed-oak rolltop desk for -a publisher's royalty statement which he had not sent me, I opened at -random a little devil of a drawer who conceals his being in the -right-hand lower corner. And lo! out stepped, airily, that well-polished -gentleman, Mr. Nineteen-Twelve. My anger over the missing accounts was -at once soothed. In certain chapters of this book I have harked back to -the years before 1914, and it may be that you conceive me as a doddering -old bore: a praiser of times past. But what would you have? You have -not surely the face to ask me to praise times present? - -So I took a long look at Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and went thoroughly -through him. My first discovery was an old menu. My second discovery was -a bunch of menus. You won't get exasperated--will you?--if I print here -the menu of a one-and-sixpenny dinner, eaten on a hot June night in -Greek Street:-- - - - Hors-d'oeuvre varie. - - Consomme Henri IV. - Creme Parmentier. - - Saumon bouille. - Concombre. - - Filet mignon. - Pommes sautes. - Haricots verts. - - Poulet en casserole. - Salade saison. - - Fraises aux liqueurs. - Glace vanille. - - Fromages. - - Dessert. - - Cafe. - - -I dug my hand deeper into the pockets of Mr. Nineteen-Twelve, and menu -after menu and relic after relic came forth. There was a menu of a Lotus -Club supper. I'm hanged if I can remember the Lotus Club, or its idea, -or even its situation. There were old hotel bills, which, thrown -together in groups, might suggest itineraries for some very good walking -tours; for there were bills from Stratford-on-Avon and Goring-on-Thames -and High Wycombe and Oxford and Banbury; there were bills from Bognor -and Arundel and Chichester and the Isle of Wight; there were bills from -Tintern and Chepstow and Dean Forest and Monmouth; there were bills from -Kendal and Appleby and Windermere and Grasmere. Another clutching hand -gave up old menus from the Great Western, the North-Western, and the -Great Northern dining-cars. In a corner I found an assortment of fancy -cigarette tins and boxes, specially designed and engraved for various -restaurants and hotels. Now the cigarette tins are no more, and the -boxes are made from flimsy card and are none too well printed, and many -of the restaurants from which they came have disappeared, these -elaborate productions are treasurable, not only as echoes of the good -days, but as _objets d'art_. - -Further search produced a flat aluminium match-case containing twelve -vestas, and crested "With compliments--Criterion Restaurant"; and a tin -waistcoat-pocket match box, also full, containing, on the inside of the -lid, a charming glimpse of the interior of the Boulogne Restaurant--a -man and woman at table, in 1912 fashions, lifting champagne glasses and -crying, through a loop that begins and finishes at their mouths: -"_Evviva noi_!" The sight of this streak of matches spurred me to -further prospecting, and the pan, after careful washing, yielded boxes -from Paris, with gaudy dancing-girls on either cover; insanely decorated -boxes from Italy, filled with red-stemmed, yellow-headed matches; plain -boxes from Monaco; and from Ostend, very choice boxes, decorated inside -and outside with examples of the Old Masters. - -Packets of toothpicks, with wrappers advertising various English and -Continental bars, came from another corner, where they were buried under -a torn page from an old _Tatler_, showing, in various phases, Portraits -of a Well-Dressed Man. This species being now extinct, I hope the plate -of that page has been destroyed, so that my relic may possess some -value. Two tickets for the Phyllis Court enclosure at Henley lay -neglected under a printed invitation to have "A Breath of Fresh Air with -the 'Old Mitre' Christmas Club, Leaving the 'Old Mitre' by four-horse -brake at 10.30, to arrive at 'The Green Man,' Richmond, at 12 noon. A -Whacking Good Dinner and a Meat Tea. Dancing on the Lawn at Dusk." An -old programme of the Covent Garden Grand Season recalled that -magnificent band of Wagnerians, Knupfer, Dittmar, van Rooy and the rest. -Where are they now--these bull-voiced Rhinelanders? Within the programme -covers I found a ticket for admission to the fight between young Ahearn -and Carpentier which was abandoned; a printed card inviting me to a -Tango Tea at the Savoy; a request for the pleasure of my company at the -Empress Rooms to dance to the costive cacophony of a Pink Bavarian Band; -and half a dozen newspaper cuttings, with scare-heads and cross-heads, -dealing at much length with Debussy's tennis-court ballet, "Jeux," -danced by Nijinsky, Schollar and Karsavina. Turning over one of these -cuttings, I found a long report of the burning of a pillar-box by a -Suffragette, and a list of recent window-breakings. - -A little packet at the bottom caught my eye, and I dived for it. It was -a small box of liqueur chocolates from Rumpelmayer's--unopened, old boy! -unopened. I am a devil for sweets, and I was beginning to tear the -wrapper, when conscience bade me pause. Ought I to eat them? Ought I not -first to ascertain whether there were not others whose need was greater -than mine? Think of the number of girls who would give their last -hairpin for but one of the luscious little umber cubes. What right had I -to liqueur chocolates of 1912 vintage? Conscience won. The packet is -still unopened; and if, within seven days from the appearance of these -lines, the ugliest girl in the W.A.A.C. will let me have her name and -address and photograph, it will be sent to her. Failing receipt of any -application by the specified date, I shall feel free to eat 'em. - -Two others relics yet remained. One was a small gold coin, none too -common, even in those days, and now, I believe, obsolete. I fancy we -called it a half-sovereign, or half-quid, or half-thick-un or -half-Jimmy, according to the current jargon of our set. The other was a -throw-away leaflet, advertising on one side the programme of a London -County Council concert in Embankment Gardens, and on the other the cheap -Sunday and Monday excursions arranged by the National Sunday League. - -This was the most heart-breaking of all the mementoes. How many Sundays, -that otherwise might have been masses of melancholy, were shattered into -glowing fragments by these inexpensive peeps at the heart of England? I -can remember now these fugitive glimpses, with every little incident of -each glad journey; and I am impelled to breathe a prayer from the soul -for the well-being of the Sunday League, since it was only by the -enterprise of the kindly N.S.L. that I was able to see my own country. -Here I give you the list of trips, with return fares, advertised on the -leaflet before me:-- - - - s. d. - - Brighton 2 6 - - Hastings 3 0 - - Eastbourne 4 0 - - Sheffield 5 0 - - Leeds 5 0 - - Weston-super-Mare 4 0 - - Tintern Abbey 4 6 - - Stratford-on-Avon 4 0 - - Warwick 4 0 - - Bournemouth 5 0 - - Isle of Wight 6 0 - - Cardiff 5 0 - - Shrewsbury 4 6 - - Margate 3 6 - - Herne Bay 3 0 - - Cromer 5 0 - - Durham 6 0 - - York 5 0 - - -Sacred name of an Albert Stanley! - -Uttering this ejaculation, I restored my treasures to their hiding-place -with the fumbling fingers of the dew-eyed, ruminative spinster, and -locked the drawer against careless hands; hoping that, some day, some -keen collector of the rare and curious might come along and offer me a -blank cheque for this collection of Nineteen-Twelviana. Looking it over, -I consider it a very good Lot--well-assorted; each item in mint state -and scarce; one or two, indeed, unique. - -What offers? - - - - -ATTABOY! - - -On a bright afternoon of last summer I suffered all the thrills -described in the sestet of Keats's sonnet, "On First Looking Into -Chapman's Homer." I discovered a new art-form. I felt like that watcher -of the skies. I stood upon a peak in Darien. But I was not silent, for -what I had discovered was the game of baseball, and--incidentally--the -soul of America. - -That match between the American Army and Navy teams was my first glimpse -of a pastime that has captivated a continent. I can well understand its -appeal to the modern temperament; for it is more than a game: it is a -sequence of studied, grotesque poses through which the players express -all the zest of the New World. You should see Williams at the top of his -pitch. You should see the sweep of Mimms' shoulders at the finish of a -wild strike. You should see Fuller preparing to catch. What profusion of -vorticist rhythms! With what ease and finish they were executed! I know -of no keener pleasure than that of watching a man do something that he -fully knows how to do--whether it be Caruso singing, Maskelyne juggling, -Balfour making an impromptu speech, a doctor tending a patient, Brangwyn -etching, an engineer at his engines, Pachmann at the piano, Inman at the -billiard-table, a captain bringing his ship alongside, roadmen driving -in a staple, or Swanneck Rube pitching. Oh, pretty to watch, sir, pretty -to watch! No hesitation here; no feeling his way towards a method; no -fortuitous hair's-breadth triumph over the nice difficulty; but cold -facility and swift, clear answers to the multiple demands of the -situation. Oh, attaboy, Rube! - -I was received in the Army's dressing-room by Mimms, their captain, who -said he was mighty glad to know me, and would put me wise to anything in -the game that had me beat. The whole thing had me beat. I was down and -out before the Umpire had cried his first "Play Ball!" which he -delivered as one syllable: "Pl'barl!" The players in their hybrid -costumes--a mixture of the jockey and the fencer--the catcher in his gas -mask and stomach protector and gigantic mitt, and the wild grace of the -artists as they "warmed up," threw me into ecstasy, and the new thrill -that I had sought so long surged over my jaded spirit. - -Then the game began, and the rooting began. In past years I attended -various Test Matches and a few football matches in Northern mining -districts, when the players came in for a certain amount of barracking; -but these affairs were church services compared with the furious abuse -and hazing handed to any unfortunate who made an error. Such screams and -eldritch noises I never thought to hear from the human voice. No -Englishman could achieve them: his vocal cords are not made that way. -There was, for example, an explosive, reverberating "_Ah-h-h-h-h-h_!" -which I now practise in my backgarden in order to scare the sparrows -from my early peas. But my attempts are no more like the real thing than -Australian Burgundy is like wine. I can achieve the noise, but some -subtle quality is ever lacking. - -The whole scene was barbaric pandemonium: the grandstand bristling with -megaphones and tossing arms and dancing hats and demoniac faces offered -a superb subject for an artist of the Nevinson or Nash school. A Chinese -theatre is but a faint reflection of a ball game. I had never imagined -that this hard, shell-covered, business people could break into such a -debauch of frenzy. You should have heard the sedate Admiral Sims, when -the Navy made a homer, with his: "Attaboy! Oh, attaway to play ball! -Zaaaa. Zaaa. Zaaa!" and when his men made a wild throw he sure handed -them theirs. - -Here are a few of the phrases hurled at offending players:-- - -"Aw, well, well, well, well, well!" - -"Ah, you pikers, where was you raised?" - -"Hey, pitcher, is this the ball game or a corner-lot game?" - -"Say, bo, you _can_ play ball--maybe." - -"Hey, catcher, quit the diamond, and lemme li'l brudder teach yeh." - -"Say, who's that at bat? What's the good of sending in a dead man?" - -"Aw, dear, dear, dear! Gimme some barb' wire. I wanter knit a sweater -for the barnacle on second." - -"Oh, watch this, watch this! He's a bad actor. Kill the bad actor!" - -"More ivory--more ivory! Oh, boy, I love every bone in yer head." - -"Get a step-ladder to it. Take orf that pitcher. He's pitching over a -plate in heaven." - -"Aw, you quitter. Oh. Oh. Oh. Bonehead, bonehead, bonehead. _Ahhhh._" - -"Now show 'em where you live, boy. Let's have something with a bit of -class to it." - -"Give him the axe, the axe, the axe." - -"What's the matter with the man on third? 'Tisn't bed-time yet." - -An everlasting chorus, with reference to the scoring-board, chanted like -an anthem:-- - -"Go-ing up! Go-ing up! Go-ing up!" - -At the end of the game--the Navy's game all the way--the fury and -abandon increased, though, during the game, it had not seemed possible -that it could. But it did. And when, limp and worn, I shuffled out to -Walham Green, and Mimms asked me whether the game had got me, I could -only reply, with a diminuendo:-- - -"Well, well, well, well, well!" - - -I shall never again be able to watch with interest a cricket or football -match; it would be like a tortoise-race after the ball game. Such speed -and fury, such physical and mental zest, I had never before seen brought -to the playing of a simple game. It might have been a life-or-death -struggle, and the balls might have been Mills bombs, and the bats -rifles. If the Americans at play give any idea of their qualities at -battle, then Heaven help the fresh guys who are up against them. - -When the boys had dressed I joined up with a party of them, and we -adjourned to the Clarendon; where one of us, a Chicago journalist, not -trusting the delicacy of the bartender's hand, obtained permission to -sling his own; and a Bronx was passed to each of us for necessary -action. This made a fitting kick to the ball game, for a Bronx is -concentrated essence of baseball; full of quips and tricks and sharp -twists of flavour; inducing that gr-r-rand and ger-l-lorious feelin'. It -took only two of these to make the journalist break into song, and he -gave us some excellent numbers of American marching-songs. He started -with the American "Tipperary," sung to an air of Sullivan's:-- - - - Hail, hail, the gang's all here! - What th'ell do we care? - What th'ell do we care? - Hail, hail, the gang's all here, - So what th'ell do we care now? - - -Then "Happy-land":-- - - - I wish I was in Happy-land, - Where rivers of beer abound; - With sloe-gin rickies hanging on the trees - And high-balls rolling on the ground. - What? - High-balls rolling on the ground? - Sure! - High-balls rolling on the ground. - - -Then the anthem of the "dry" States:-- - - - Nobody knows how dry I am, - How dry I am, - How dry I am, - You don't know how dry I am, - How dry I am, - How dry I am. - Nobody knows how dry I am, - And nobody cares a damn. - - -After this service of song, brief, bright and brotherly, we moved slowly -Eastward, and in Kensington Gardens I learned something about college -yells. For suddenly, without warning, one of the party bent forward, -with arms outstretched, and yelled the following at a pensive sheep:-- - -"Alle ge reu, ge reu, ge reu. War-who-bar-za. Hi ix, hi ip; hi capica, -doma nica. Hong pong. Lita pica. Halleka, balakah, ba." - -At first I conjectured that the Bronx was running its course, but when -he had spoken his piece the rest of the gang let themselves go, and I -then understood that we were having a round of college yells. -Respectable strangers might have mistaken the performance for the war -march of the priests, or the entry of the gladiators, or the battle-song -of the hairy Ainus; for such monstrous perversions of sense and sound -surely have never before disturbed the serenity of the Gardens. - -I understand that the essential of a good college yell is that it be -utterly meaningless, barbaric and larynx-racking. It should seem to be -the work of some philologist who had suddenly gone mad under the strain -of his studies and had attempted to converse with an aborigine. I think -Augustana's yell pretty well fills that condition:-- - -"Rocky-eye, rocky-eye. Zip, zum, zie. Shingerata, shingerata, bim, bum, -bie. Zip-zum, zip-zum, rah, rah, rah. Karaborra, karaborra, -Augus-_tana_." - -At the conclusion of this choral service we caught a bus to Piccadilly -Circus and I left them at the Tube entrance singing "Bob up serenely," -and went home to dream of the ball game and of millions of fans -screaming abstruse advice into my deaf ear. - -Oh, attaboy! - - * * * * * - -Since that merry meeting I have had many opportunities of getting next -to the American Army and Navy, and hearing their views of us and British -views of them, and the experience has done me a lot of good. Until then, -the only Americans I had met were the leisured, over-moneyed tourists, -mostly disagreeable, and, as I have found since, by no means -representative of their country. You know them. They came to England in -the autumn, and stayed at opulent hotels, and made a lot of noise around -ancient shrines, and sent local prices sky-rocketing wherever they -stayed, and threw their weight and fifty-dollar tips about, and "Say'd" -and "My'd" and "Gee'd" up and down the Strand; that kind of American. -These people did their country a lot of harm, because I and thousands of -other people received them as Americans and disliked them; just as -wealthy trippers to and from other countries leave bad impressions of -their people. I made up my mind on America from my meetings with these -parvenus. I had forgotten that the best and typical people of a country -are the hard-working, stay-at-home people, whose labours just enable -them to feed and clothe their children and provide nothing for gadding -about to other countries. To-day, the solid middle-class people of -England and America are meeting and mixing, and all political history is -washed out by the waters of social intercourse between them. High -officials and diplomats are for ever telling one another over official -luncheon tables that the friendship of this and that nation is sealed, -but such remarks are valueless until the common people of either country -have met and made their own decision; and the cost of living does not -permit such meetings. Thus we have wars and unholy alliances. If only -the common people of all countries could meet and exchange views in a -common language, without the prejudice inspired by Press and politician, -international amity would be for ever established, as Anglo-American -amity is now established by the free-and-easy meeting of hard-working, -middle-class Americans and the same social type of Englishman. - -After meeting hundreds of Americans of a class and position similar to -my own, I have changed all my views of America. We have everything in -common and nothing to differ about. I don't care a damn on whose side -was right or wrong in 1773. I have taken the boys round London. I have -played their games. I have eaten their food. I have talked their slang -and taught them mine. They have eaten my food, and we have sported -joyfully together, and discussed music and books and theatres, and -amiably amused ourselves at the expense of each other's social -institutions and ceremonies. As they are guests in England, I have -played host, and, among other entertainment that I have offered, I have -been able to give them what they most needed; namely, evenings and odd -hours in real middle-class English homes, where they could see an -Englishwoman pour out tea and see an English baby put to bed. I found -that they were sick of the solemn "functions" arranged for their -entertainment. They didn't want high-brow receptions or musical -entertainments in Mayfair. They preferred the spontaneous entertainment -arising from a casual encounter in the street, as by asking the way to -this or that place, leading to an invitation to a suburban home and a -suburban meal. From such a visit they get an insight into our ways, our -ideals, our outlook on life, better than they ever could from a Pall -Mall club or a Government official's drawing-room. They get the real -thing, which is something to write home about. In the "arranged" affairs -they are "guests"; in the others, they are treated with the rude, -haphazard fellowship which we extend to friends. - -In these troubled days there is little room for the exercise of the -graces of life. Our ears are deaf to the gentle voice of urbanity. The -delicacies of intercourse have been trodden underfoot, and lie withered -and broken. Even the quality of mercy has been standardized and put into -uniform. Throughout the world to-day, everything is organized, and to -organize a beautiful movement or emotion is to brutalize it: while -lubricating its mechanism you ossify its soul. Thank God, there is still -left a little spontaneity. Human impulse may be bruised and broken, but -it is a fiery thing, and hard to train to harness or to destroy; and I -can assure you that the Americans are grateful for it wherever it finds -expression. - -One evening, just before curfew--it was night according to the -Government, but the sky said quite clearly that it was evening--I was -standing at my favourite coffee-stall near King's Cross, eating -hard-boiled eggs and drinking introspective coffee, and chatting with -the boss on the joy of life. - -"Met any of the Americans?" I asked, anxious to get his opinion of -them. - -"Met any? Crowds of 'em." - -"What do you think of 'em?" - -"Oh, I dunno. Bit of a change after all these other foreigners. -'Strewth--d'yeh know, when a Cockney like yesself comes along to the -stall I feel like dropping down dead--'strewth, I do. Never get none o' -the usual 'appy crowd along now," he went on, mopping the sloppy -counter. - -"But how do the Americans strike you?" - -"The Americans? Well...." He folded his arms, which with him is the -flourish preliminary to an oration. Here is his opinion, which I think -sums up the American character pretty aptly:-- - -"The Americans. Well, nice, likeable fellers I've alwis found 'em. Don't -'alf make for my stall when they come out o' the station. Like it -better, they say, than Lady Dardy Dinkum's canteen inside. And eat.... -Fair clear me out every time they come. I get on with 'em top-'ole. -There's something about 'em--I dunno what, some kind o' kiddishness--but -not that exac'ly--a sort of----" - -"Fresh delight in simple things," I suggested, drawing on my Pelmanized -Bartlett. - -"That's jest it. Mad about London, y'know. Why, I bin in London yers an' -yers, and it don't worry me. Wants to know which is the oldest building -in London, and where that bloke put 'is cloak in the mud for some Queen, -an' where Cromwell was executed, and 'ow many generals is buried in -Westminster Abbey. 'Ow should I know anything about Westminster Abbey? I -live in Camden Town. I got me business t'attend to. - -"There's a friend of mine, Mr. 'Ankin, the gentleman what takes the -tickets at Baker Street--'e met two of 'em t'other day. Navy boys--from -the country, I should think. D'you know, they spent the 'ole mornin' -ridin' up and down the movin' staircase--yerce, and would 'ave spent the -afternoon, too, on'y one of 'em tried to run up the staircase what was -comin' down an'.... Well, I dessay it was good practice for 'em, but, as -Mr. 'Ankin told 'em, it's safer to monkey with a U-boat than with a -movin' staircase. And anyway, 'e'll be out of hospital before 'is ship's -moved. - -"Yerce, I like the Americans--what I've seen of 'em. No swank about -'em, y'know--officers an' men, just alike, all pals together. -Confidence. That's what they got. Talks to yeh matey-like--know what I -mean--man to man kind o' thing. Funny the way they looks at England, -though. I s'pose they seen it on the map and it looked smallish. One -feller come round the stall t'other night, an' 'e'd got two days' leave -an' thought 'e could do Stratford-on-Avon, Salisbury Cathedral, Chester, -Brighton, Edinburgh Castle, an' the spot o' blood where that American -gel, Marry Queener Scots, murdered 'er boy--all in two days. 'Ustle, I -believe they calls it over there. So I told 'im to start 'ustlin' right -away, else, when 'e got back, 'e'd find 'imself waiting on the carpet, -waiting for the good old C.B. Likeable boys, though. 'Ere's to 'em. No, -I'll 'ave a ginger-ale. I don't drink me own coffee--not when I'm -drinkin' anyone's 'ealth, like. Well, _Attaboy_, as they say over -there." - - - - -ADVERTISEMENTS - - -BY SIMEON STRUNSKY - -PROFESSOR LATIMER'S PROGRESS - -The "sentimental journey" of a middle-aged American scholar upon whose -soul the war has come down heavily, and who seeks a cure--and an -answer--in a walking trip up-State. - - - "The war has produced no other book like 'Professor Latimer's - Progress,' with its sanative masculine blend of deep feeling, fluid - intelligence, and heart-easing mirth, its people a joyous company. - It is a spiritual adventure, the adventure of the American soul in - search of a new foothold in a tottering world. We have so many - books of documents, of animus, or argument; what a refreshment to - fall in, for once in a way, with a book of that quiet creative - humor whose 'other name' is wisdom."--_The Nation._ (_Illustrated_, - $1.40 _net_.) - - -LITTLE JOURNEYS TOWARDS PARIS (1914/1918) - -By W. HOHENZOLLERN, translated and adapted for untutored minds by SIMEON -STRUNSKY. _75 cents net._ - - - "If only the Germans could be supplied with translations of this - exquisite satire they would die laughing at the grisly joke on - themselves. Not only funny, it is a final reductio ad absurdum of - the Hun philosophy."--_Chicago Tribune._ - - -BELSHAZZAR COURT Or Village Life in New York City - -Graceful essays about the average citizen in his apartment house, in the -street, at the theater, the baseball park, with his children, etc. $1.35 -_net_. - - -BY DOROTHY CANFIELD - -HOME FIRES IN FRANCE - -True stories of war-time France. $1.50 _net_. - - - "The finest work of fiction produced by the war."--_Prof. Wm. Lyon - Phelps._ - - "Of war books, 'Home Fires in France' is most likely to endure for - its truth, its humanity and its literary value."--_The Nation._ - - -UNDERSTOOD BETSY - -Illustrated by ADA C. WILLIAMSON. $1.50 _net_. - - - "That rare thing, a good book for girls."--_N. Y. Evening Post._ - - Older readers will find its humor delightful. A book that "holds - laughter, some excitement and all outdoors." - - -_Two Novels of American Life_ - -THE BENT TWIG - -The story of a lovely open-eyed, open-minded American girl, her family, -and her romance. $1.75 _net_. - -THE SQUIRREL-CAGE - -An unusual personal and real story of American family life. $1.75 _net_. - - -_Two Volumes of Notable Short Stories_ - -HILLSBORO PEOPLE - -Stories of Vermont people, with occasional Vermont Verse by SARAH N. -CLEGHORN. $1.50 _net_. - -THE REAL MOTIVE - -Stories with varied backgrounds unified by the underlying humanity of -all the characters. $1.50 _net_. - - -BY MARGARET WIDDEMER - -_NOVELS_ - -THE WISHING-RING MAN - -A romance of a New England summer colony. $1.50 _net_. - - - "Margaret Widdemer, who says she likes happy stories, proves it by - writing them for other people to read.... The book is full of - charm, amusing incident, and gay conversation; and the interest in - the situation holds to the last half page."--_N.Y. Evening Post._ - - -YOU'RE ONLY YOUNG ONCE - -Miss Widdemer's new novel is the story of youth's romance as it came to -the five girls and three boys of a happy American family. $1.50 _net_. - - -_POETRY_ - -FACTORIES, AND OTHER POEMS - -Second printing. $1.30 _net_. - - - "An art which speaks ever so eloquently for itself.... Splendid - effort both in thought and execution, and ranks with the cry of the - children as voiced by Mrs. Browning."--_San Francisco Chronicle._ - - "Among the foremost of American versifiers when she touches the - great passionate realities of life."--_Living Age._ - - -THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE - -A collection of the poems that have appeared since "Factories." $1.25 -_net_. - - -BOOKS ON MUSICIANS - -BY ROMAIN ROLLAND - - Author of "Jean-Christophe," and called by W. J. HENDERSON "The - most interesting of living critics of Music and Musicians." - - -SOME MUSICIANS OF FORMER DAYS - - Translated from the fourth French edition by MARY BLAIKLOCK. $1.50 - net. - - -The Place of Music in General History; The Beginning of Opera; The First -Opera Played in Paris; Notes on Lully, and shorter but vivid papers on -Gluck, Gretry, and Mozart. - - - " ... One of the greatest of living musical scholars. He is also - the most interesting of contemporaneous writers.... Written with - brilliant scholarship, with critical insight and with flashes of - human sympathy and humor.... Every lover of music should hasten to - give himself the pleasure of a persual of this delightful volume - which radiates learning, keen judgment and sympathetic - humor."--_New York Sun._ - - -MUSICIANS OF TO-DAY - - Translated from the fifth French edition by _Mary Blaiklock_. With - an Introduction by CLAUDE LANDI. 324 pp. $1.50 net. - - -Berlioz's stormy career and music, Wagner's "Siegfried" and "Tristan," -Saint-Saens, Vincent D'Indy, Hugo Wolf, Debussy's "Pelleas and -Melisande," "The Musical Movement in Paris," and an absorbing paper on -the Concert-Music of Richard Strauss, etc. - - - "May surely be read with profit by the musically uneducated and - educated."--_Philip Hale in the Boston Herald._ - - -HANDEL - - Translation and Introduction by A. EAGLEFIELD HULL. With musical - extracts, four unusual illustrations, and an index. 210 pp. $1.50 - net. - - " ... Written with enthusiasm, but with judgment as well. The story - of Handel's life is told simply, but with feeling and alacrity of - phrase ... will repay reading...."--_Springfield Republican._ - - -BEETHOVEN - - Translated by A. EAGLEFIELD HULL. $1.50 net. - - -This is, perhaps, the most famous of the non-fiction musical books by -the author of "Jean-Christophe." The translator has added to Mr. -Rolland's famous monograph, in which he treats of Beethoven both as -musician and hero, so much interesting additional material that this -volume almost doubles the size of the original. - - -_The Third Edition_, _Revised and Enlarged_, _of_ - -THE HOME BOOK OF VERSE - -COMPILED BY - -BURTON E. STEVENSON - -has been revised from end to end--590 poems have been added, pages -renumbered, author, title, and first line indices, and the biographical -matter corrected, etc., etc. - -The hundreds of letters from readers and poets suggesting additions or -corrections as well as the columns of reviews of the first edition have -been considered. Poets who were chary of lending their support to an -unknown venture have now generously permitted the use of their work. - -This edition includes the "new" poets such as MASEFIELD, CHESTERTON, -FROST, RUPERT BROOKE, DE LA MARE, RALPH HODGSON, etc. - - - "A collection so complete and distinguished that it is difficult to - find any other approaching it sufficiently for comparison."--_New - York Times Book Review_ on the first edition. - - -_India Paper, 4,096 pages_ - -_Cloth, one volume, $12.50 net._ -_Cloth, two volumes, $16.00 net._ -_Half Morocco, one volume, $15.00 net._ -_Half Morocco, two volumes, $25.00 net._ - - -PATIENCE WORTH: A PSYCHIC MYSTERY - -By CASPAR S. YOST. Fourth Printing. $1.50 net. - -In July, 1913, Mrs. John H. Curran, of St. Louis, and a friend were -amusing themselves with a ouija board, when out of a clear sky came: - - - "Many moons ago, I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth my name." - - -Thus began an intimate association with "Patience Worth," that still -continues, and a series of communications that in intellectual vigor and -literary quality are virtually without precedent. - -An account of the whole matter and the shorter communications make up -the present volume. - - - "Sensitive, witty, keenly metaphysical. Whoever or whatever she is, - she meets the test that human beings meet."--FRANCIS HACKETT in - _The New Republic_. - - "A mind, whosoever it may be, that has retained abundant vigor, - distinction and individual savor."--LAWRENCE GILMAN in _The North - American Review_. - - -_BOOKS BY PATIENCE WORTH_ - -Edited by CASPAR S. YOST - -THE SORRY TALE - -A Story of the Time of Christ. 644 pages. $1.90 net. - -A story filled with action. It brings into close view the historical -characters of Tiberius, the Herods, Pilate, Peter, and particularly and -dominantly, Jesus Christ. - - - "This second book increases the marvel of the first. A wonderful, a - beautiful and a noble book."--_New York Times Book Review._ - - -HOPE TRUEBLOOD - -A novel of Mid-Victorian England. $1.50 net. - - - "A work approximating absolute genius."--_New York Tribune._ - - -WRITERS OF THE DAY - -Critical estimates of the works of famous authors and accounts of their -lives, written while they are yet alive, and done, not by literary -hacks, but by fellow-craftsmen of a younger generation distinguished for -imaginative work. - -_Each volume with portrait and bibliography, 75 cents net._ - - - "There is nothing perfunctory about these little volumes.... All - are terse, breezy, comprehensive, authoritative."--_New York Times - Review._ - - -ANATOLE FRANCE -By W. L. GEORGE - -H. G. WELLS -By J. D. BERESFORD - -ARNOLD BENNETT -By F. J. H. DARTON - -RUDYARD KIPLING -By JOHN PALMER - -HENRY JAMES -By REBECCA WEST - -JOSEPH CONRAD -By HUGH WALPOLE - -THOMAS HARDY -By HUGH CHILD - -JOHN GALSWORTHY -By SHEILA KAYE-SMITH - -MRS. HUMPHRY WARD -By STEPHEN GWYNN - - -BY CLAYTON HAMILTON - -Each book fully indexed. 12mo. $1.75 net. - -PROBLEMS OF THE PLAYWRIGHT - -Building a Play Backward; Surprise in the Drama; The Troublesome Last -Act; High Comedy in America; The George M. Cohan School of Playrights; -Middle Class Opinion; Criticism and Creation in the Drama; Dramatic -Talent and Theatrical Talent; The Plays of Lord Dunsany; Romance and -Realism in the Drama; Scenic Settings in America; The New Stagecraft; -The Non-Commercial Drama; A Democratic Insurrection in the Theatre; A -Scheme for a Stock Company; What's Wrong with the American Drama, etc., -etc. - - - _Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Bookman_: " ... Mr. Hamilton and - Mr. Archer--like Lessing and like Sarcey--have a broad background - of culture.... They never stray into the dusty paths of - pedantry.... Consistently interesting because it has the support of - knowledge and the savour of individuality." - - -STUDIES IN STAGECRAFT - -The New Art of Making Plays, The Pictorial Stage, The Modern Art of -Stage Direction, A Plea for a New Type of Play, The Undramatic Drama, -The Supernatural Drama, The Irish National Theatre, Where to Begin a -Play, A New Defense of Melodrama, The Art of the Moving-Picture Play, -The One-Act Play in America, Organizing an Audience, etc., etc. - - - _Nation_: "Information, alertness, coolness, sanity and the command - of a forceful and pointed English.... A good book, in spite of all - deductions." - - _Prof. Archibald Henderson, in The Drama_: "University excellent in - quality.... Continually interesting in presentation ... uniform for - high excellence and elevated standards...." - - -THE THEORY OF THE THEATRE - -What is a Play?--The Psychology of Theatre Audiences.--The Actor and the -Dramatist.--Stage Conventions in Modern Times.--The Four Leading Types -of Drama.--The Modern Social Drama, and Other Principles of Dramatic -Criticism.--The _Public_ and the Dramatist.--Dramatic Art and the -Theatre Business.--Dramatic Literature and Theatric -Journalism.--Pleasant and Unpleasant Plays.--Themes in the Theatre.--The -Function of Imagination, etc., etc. - - - _Bookman_: "Presents coherently a more substantial body of idea on - the subject than perhaps elsewhere accessible." - - _Boston Transcript_: "At every moment of his discussion he has a - firm grasp upon every phase of the subject." - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUT AND ABOUT LONDON*** - - -******* This file should be named 53155.txt or 53155.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/1/5/53155 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/53155.zip b/old/53155.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 8f32e5b..0000000 --- a/old/53155.zip +++ /dev/null |
