us all a stern
reality--a battle-field--a victory--not a pleasure garden, or a Vanity
Fair; and even in London you may mix with better society than that of
painted Traviatas or tipsy men. Smoking, dancing, drinking, is not all
life; yet for such purposes Vauxhall solely exists. I much question, if
London alone were concerned, so great is the rivalry in this particular
style of amusement, whether Vauxhall would be a success; but the
provincial element is amazingly strong. I account for that as follows.
The railway system has done this for London. It has filled it with
strangers. From the wilds of Connemara, from the distant Land's End and
remote John o'Groat's, old and young, male and female, rich and poor,
wise or foolish, come in shoals to see London and its sights. Now
Vauxhall, and its illumination, and its slice of ham, have been the
wonder of generations, and to Vauxhall away they rush. Their speech
betrayeth them. Look at them. This party is from Lancashire. From the
flowery fields of Somersetshire that party have come. Wales has sent her
exciteable sons, and Scotland her reckless prodigals, for there are such
even ayont the Tweed. Here we have some five or six--a father and
mother, a daughter and her husband, and it may be a brother. Those
giants were never reared within the sound of Bow bells, and to be
impertinent to either the old lady or the young one were the height of
folly. Their fashions are not ours, yet are they wondrous jolly; and,
woe is me, the head of the family is exhibiting an agility as he bounds
up and down as an elephant might, which is unbecoming his years. How is
this? Why actually in a remote corner of the pocket, in the innermost
depths of that ancient coat, there is a bottle of raw gin, which the old
satyr puts to his own mouth, and then hands it to the rest of his party,
by whom, in a similar manner, it is applied, till what is left would not
hurt the conscience of a teetotaller to drink. It is well his "missus"
is there to pilot him home, and the sooner he gets back to his Yorkshire
wilds the better. Yet we have a sprinkling of town life. The reader
must remember Vauxhall occupies altogether eleven acres of ground, and on
one occasion upwards of 20,000 persons paid for admission. Look at that
faded pair. Some forty years ago they were fast, as times went, and here
they have come to have a peep at the old place, and to wonder how they
cared so much about it then. There