OR , STUDIES IN BLACK AND GRAY . BY J. EWING RITCHIE, AUTHOR OF “THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON,” “RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON,” “BRITISH SENATORS,” ETC. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1880. [ All rights reserved .] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS , CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS ....

London has vastly altered since the Author, some quarter of a century ago, described some of the scenes which occurred nightly in its midst of which respectable people were ignorant, which corrupted its young men and young women, and which rendered it a scandal and a horror to civilisation itself.  The publication of his work, “The Night Side of London”—of which nearly eight thousand copies were sold—did something, by calling the attention of Members of Parliament and philanthropists to the subj

London, for a “village,” as old Cobbett used to call it, is a pretty large one; and, viewed from the lowest stand-point—that of the dull gospel according to Cocker—may well be described as truly wonderful.  It eats a great deal of beef, and drinks a great deal of beer.  You are staggered as you explore its warehouses.  I stood in a granary the other day in which there were some eighty thousand sacks of wheat; and in the Bank of England I held in my hand, for a minute—all too brief—a million of p

The Middlesex magistrates have shut up the Argyle Rooms.  Mr. Bignell, who has found it worth his while to invest £80,000 in the place, it is to be presumed, is much annoyed, and has, in some respects, reason to be so.  Year after year noble lords and Middlesex magistrates have visited the place, and have licensed it.  Indeed, it had become one of the institutions of the country—one of the places which Bob Logic and Corinthian Tom (for such men still exist, though they go by other names) would b

I fear the first impression made upon the mind of the careful observer is that, as regards amusements, the mass of the people are deteriorating very rapidly, that we are more frivolous and childish and silly in this way than our fathers.  One has no right to expect anything very intellectual in the way of amusements.  People seek them, and naturally, as a relief from hard work.  A little amusement now and then is a necessity of our common humanity, whether rich or poor, high or low, sinner or sa

The journeyman engineer tells us one day as he was walking along with a mate in the country, he spoke of the beauty of the surrounding scenery and of the magnificent sight which met their eyes.  “Oh, blow the sights of the scenery,” said his companion, “the sight for me is a public-house.”  It is the same everywhere.  I was once travelling in a third-class carriage from Newry to Belfast, when I heard the most atrocious exclamations from a party of young men seated at the other end, all offering

It is said—and indeed it has been said so often that I feel ashamed of saying it—that one half the world does not know how the other half lives.  I am sure that whether that is true or not, few of my City readers have any idea of what goes on in the City while they are sitting comfortably at home, or are sitting equally comfortably at church or chapel (for of course the denunciations of the preacher when he speaks of the depravity of the age do not refer to them).  Suppose we take a stroll in th

Is chiefly to be found in Whitechapel, in Westminster, and in Drury Lane.  It is in such places the majority of our working men live, especially when they are out of work or given to drink; and the drinking that goes on in these places is often truly frightful, especially where the sexes are mixed, and married people, or men and women supposed to be such, abound.  In some of these lodging-houses as many as two or three hundred people live; and if anything can keep a man down in the world, and re

On Christmas Eve, in the midst of a dense fog that filled one’s throat and closed one’s eyes, and rendered the vast City one huge sepulchre, as it were, peopled by ghosts and ghouls, I spent a few hours in what may be called studies at the bar. First, I turned my steps down Whitechapel way.  It is there the pressure of poverty is felt as much as anywhere in London, and as it was early in the evening I went there, I saw it under favourable circumstances, for the sober people would be shopping, an

An effort is being made by a band of British philanthropists, of which the Rev. Mr. Turner is secretary, to put down, if not the opium traffic, at any rate that part of it which is covered by the British flag.  Opium is to the Chinese what the quid is to the British tar, or the gin-bottle to the London charwoman.  But in reality, as I firmly believe, for the purpose of opening the door to all sorts of bribery and corruption, the traffic is prohibited as much as possible by the Chinese Government

Most of my London readers know Southend.  It is as pretty a place, when the tide is up and the weather is fine, as you can find anywhere near London.  Standing on the cliff on a clear day it is a lovely panorama which greets your eye.  At your feet rolls the noble river, to which London owes its greatness, and on which sail up and down, night and day, no matter how stormy the season may be, the commercial navies of the world.  On the other side is the mouth of the Medway, with its docks and men-

One fine summer day a friend agreed with me to go down the river.  Sheerness was fixed on, not on account of its beauty, for that part near the harbour is by no means attractive, and like most of our naval and military stations it is full of low public-houses, which by no means add to its attractions, but simply on account of the fact that the place could be reached and the return journey made in the course of a day; that we could be on the water all the while, and that we should have a pleasant

That we are a nation of shopkeepers I believe, not only on the evidence of the first Napoleon, but from what I see and hear every day.  There are few people in the City who are born wealthy, compared with the number who do manage in the course of a successful mercantile career to win for themselves a fair share of this world’s goods.  The other night I was spending the evening at the West-End mansion of a City millionaire.  As I left, I asked a friend what was the secret of our host’s success, “

There are some people who are always grumbling.  Hit them high or hit them low, you can’t please them.  I don’t think I belong to that class.  I like to look on the sunny side, remembering as the poet used to say when I was a good deal younger than I am now— ’Tis wiser, better far. In the words of a still greater poet— I take the goods the gods provide me. And if the lovely Thais sits beside me, provided she does not lay a stress upon my head and purse (I am a married man, and the father of a fa

“Shall I wait to bring you back, sir?” said a cabman to me the other morning, as he landed me at an early hour before the gloomy pile, which has hitherto been known as the Middlesex House of Correction, placed, as my readers may know well, on Mount Pleasant, just out of Gray’s Inn Road.  On a dull, dreary morning, it is anything but pleasant, that Mount, in spite of its name, and yet I dismissed the cabman and got out into the street, not to enjoy the view, or to inhale the raw fog, which threw

The other day I was witness to a spectacle which made me feel a doubt as to whether I was living in the nineteenth century.  I was, as it were, within the shadow of that mighty London where Royalty resides; where the richest Church in Christendom rejoices in its abbey and cathedral, and its hundreds of churches; where an enlightened and energetic Dissent has not only planted its temples in every district, but has sent forth its missionary agents into every land; where the fierce light of public

One of the comic sights of the City is that of a guardian of the streets making an attack upon a bevy of small boys, who are enjoying themselves in their own wild way in some quiet corner sacred to the pursuits of trade.  It may be that the ragged urchins are pretending to be engaged in business, but X. Y. Z. knows better, and, remembering that order is heaven’s first law, and that the aim of all good men and true is to make London as much as possible like the New Jerusalem, he dashes in amongst