From “John Bull and His Island.”

“HELL is a city much like London,” said the great poet Shelley. London is, indeed, an ignoble mixture of beer and Bible; of gin and gospel; of drunkenness and hypocrisy; of unheard-of squalor and unbridled luxury; of misery and prosperity; of poor, abject, shivering, starving creatures, and people insolent with happiness and wealth, whose revenues would appear to us a colossal fortune.

  Except at the East End, the poor are not confined to any special quarter of the capital; you may see them everywhere clothed in rags and degradation. In this free country, the most abject human beings seem to go about clothed with a covering that resembles in form the vestures of the upper classes, just to parade their misery in the open street, as a constant reproach to the indifference and contempt of the rich. A celebrated author commits a serious error—an error which only his short stay in England can account for—when he says that there are no beggars or low people to be seen in the parks of London. These places swarm with them, and so do Regent Street, Oxford Street, and all the great arteries of the town.

  Let us take a look at the public promenades.

  Hyde Park is a kind of large field badly kept in order, and situated in the midst of London. There may be seen by day the richest aristocracy in the world, on horseback, or in their carriages, going round and round the graveled drives. At nightfall, Hyde Park becomes a resort for cutthroats, a huge lupanar at sixpence a head, that an Englishman will advise you to carefully avoid; the vilest scum of the streets meet there to wallow in the mire to their hearts’ content; the gates are left open purposely by night. The policemen who stand at the entrance could easily cleanse this hotbed of vice; but they have express orders not to meddle in that which, it would appear, is not their business. The London populace is a malignant one; it is best not to meddle with it….

  The drunkenness in the streets is indescribable. On Saturday nights it is a general witches’ sabbath. The women drink to almost as great an extent as the men. In Scotland they equal them. In Ireland they surpass them. My authority is an official report made to the English government in 1877. I find the following advertisement in the Christian World: “The wife of a clergyman of the Church of England wishes to recommend to a Christian family a cook formerly given to drinking, but who has taken a firm resolution of leading a better life.” Dear good lady! Why does she not take her herself? Ah! I will tell you why. The worthy lady is not selfish; clergyman’s wife though she be, she does not wish to monopolize all the opportunities of doing good; she leaves some for you; you should be grateful to her.

  The Englishman is only noisy when he is drunk; then he becomes combative and wicked. One-half the murders one hears of are committed under the influence of drink. It is not so very long since a gentleman was not ashamed to be seen tipsy in the street. At the beginning of the century they went to parliament in this state; it was rather good form. There is a story which says that Pitt one day went to the House of Commons leaning upon the arm of an honorable friend. They were both of them drunk. “I say, Pitt,” cried the great statesman’s friend, “How is it? I can’t see the speaker.”

  “That’s funny! I—see—two,” replied Pitt.

  I remember hearing a drunkard one day in Cannon Street station—it was at the time when a war between England and Russia appeared imminent—challenging loudly the latter country. “Come on, Russia, I’ll manage you,” he shouted. As Russia did not make her appearance: “Well, then, come on, Turkey; Russia or Turkey, I don’t care which it is.” The same silence on the part of the Turk. “Well, then, come on, Russia, Turkey, England, I’ll fight the b—— lot of you.” He was got into a carriage somehow. I pity his poor wife if he reached home without having slaked his thirst for battle upon one of the European powers.

  The saddest spectacle that man, in his degradation, has yet given to the world, is a file of sandwiches. Two boards are slung over the sandwich man’s neck, one on his chest, the other on his back, and he is sent about the streets placarded with the strangest, most grotesque advertisements. For the meagre pay of a few pence, he has, all day long, in all the samples of weather that this cold, damp climate affords, to pace along the gutters of the principal streets. I say in the gutter, for he is not allowed to leave it, lest he should intercept the traffic, either of the road or the pavement. I have seen these poor wretches dragging one tired foot after the other, and encased in great square trunks, that covered them from knee to neck. Only their head and arms were free, and even the arms were not at liberty altogether, for they had to distribute to the passers-by the circulars of a trunk-making firm. Our chiffonniers are princes in comparison with these poor beasts of burden:—

  You will not have gone a hundred paces along the street with a valise or bag in your hand, without having a band of street boys and loafers at your heels. They are all on the lookout for a chance of earning a penny, if you confide your luggage to them to carry, or of disappearing round the corner with it, if you turn your back an instant. If you require to cross the road, a beggar in rags will step in front of you and sweep away the mud out of your path with his broom. You will come across these poor devils in the most fashionable quarters: in Piccadilly, in Regent Street, at Hyde Park Corner, under the very windows of Buckingham Palace even.

  The most flourishing businesses in London, and the only ones that are really substantial, are those of beer and old clothes. No credit for the poor man: to get his glass of beer he must come down with his three halfpence. The publican and the pawnbroker are the princes of English trade. The one is the consequence of the other. Each is the best friend of the other.

  In England the government does not interfere in these matters; it does not monopolize any industry, does not undertake to supply the taxpayer with brimstone matches that will not light, and threepenny fireproof cigars.

  The needy person applies to the pawnbroker. The manner in which these gentry, whom I have heard magistrates plainly call receivers of stolen goods, carry on business, favors and encourages theft. Ma tante, who, in France, corresponds to my uncle on this side of the Channel, is obliged by law to pay the person who pledges or sells any object of value in that person’s own residence. This, at any rate, is a slight guarantee. Here, you may give the pawnbroker the first name and address that occur to your mind, and he pays you. He lends at the rate of thirty per cent. and advances as little as he can, because he takes all articles at his own risk; if they have been stolen and are subsequently identified by their rightful owner, he is obliged to restore them.

  The language of the streets is beyond everything that any French dictionary places at the disposal of the translator; all idea of conveying a notion of it must be renounced. Just as choice, euphemistic, and free from objectionable expressions as is the language of the well-educated classes, just so crude and obscene is that of the lower orders. These latter seem to have but one adjective at their disposition, the adjective bl——y. This word, which corresponds to our oath sacré, makes one shudder in England. To French ears it can only sound ridiculous. An English workman will say, for instance, “I told my ——— master that he only gave me a ——— sovereign every ——— week, and that I wanted five ——— shillings more. He said he had not the ——— time to listen to my ——— complaints,” etc. And so on all the while. This word, however, which happens to be now spelled like the synonym of sanguinary is, we believe, no other than a corruption of the expression “by’r lady” (by our lady) which we come across several times in Shakespeare.

  Cock-fighting and dog-fighting, so famous in former days, are now forbidden by law. Boxers themselves have ceased to be an attraction; they are liable to prosecution, and only meet for a match clandestinely. These remnants of barbarism are fast disappearing. These combats were terrible. The Englishman hits a blow that would knock your head off your shoulders. This is a curious thing: even when these savages fight in earnest, they never kick each other; it is contrary to the national spirit. The kick is reserved strictly for the weaker sex, who enjoy the whole and sole monopoly of it.