tealth and copious bribing, plus the influence of my
fair companion, I found that, though it was difficult it was
nevertheless possible to eat and drink and dance in London till dawn.
Yet at no place to which we went could I find anything unlike any other
city in the world--the only difference being that in London one must act
surreptitiously, while other cities permit all of the London indulgences
openly. Surely the night life of London is innocent enough! Why
membership in expensive clubs is necessary in order for one to enjoy it
is a question to which only British logic is applicable. The searcher
for thrills or the touring shock absorber will find nothing in London to
rattle his psychic slats. Even the professional moralist, skilled in the
subtle technicalities of sin, can find nothing in England's capital to
make him shudder and flee. The chief criticism against London night life
is that it is hypocritical, that it is sordid, because it is denied and
indulged in subterraneanly. The hypocrisy of it all is doubly
accentuated by the curious fact that the British public permits
trafficking in the promenades of its theatres, such as even New York has
balked at these many years. I refer to such theatres--called "music
halls," that they may be distinguished from the smaller houses in which
the serious drama is produced--as the "Alhambra," in Leicester Square;
the "Empire Theatre of Varieties," also in Leicester Square; the "Palace
Theatre of Varieties" on Cambridge Circus in Shaftesbury Avenue; the
"London Pavilion" in Piccadilly; and the "Hippodrome" at the corner of
Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road. Let us inspect their vaudeville
offerings. Let us snoop into their wares. At these theatres, equipped
with numerous and eminently available cafes, women, frail and fair, sit
and walk about on the promenades and generously waive introductions when
the young gentlemen evince a desire to speak to them. But there is no
romance here. These promenades are even without illusion. Here, among
the theatres, is where London tries to be Paris. Just as she tries to be
New York in Regent Street. Here is where the most moral town in
Christendom discovers her native hoggishness. Here is the great slave
market of the English.

But we are out for vaudeville and not for slaves, and so we pursue our
virtuous way up the stream of amiable fair until we reach the Palace
Music Hall, where a poster advertising a Russian dancer inspires us to