to the obscenity. The jury were
complimented on their intelligent and lascivious appearance, all the
filthy particulars which had been noticed were referred to Dog Latin, and
poetical quotations were plentifully thrown in; and by twelve, amidst the
plaudits of the audience, the affair, so far as the Judge and Jury Club
was concerned, was over. Then there was supper for such as wished it,
and an entertainment to follow, either in the shape of a concert or of an
exhibition of _Poses Plastiques_. To these subsequent entertainments
ladies were generally admitted--and perhaps the less I say about them or
their proceedings the better. If I refer to them at all, it is but as an
illustration of the drinking customs of society. These Judge and Jury
Clubs after all are but an excuse for drinking. They are held at
public-houses--there is drinking going on all the time the trial
lasts,--nor could sober men listen unless they had the drink. I believe
an attempt has been made to introduce this kind of thing to the
provinces, but it has not answered. In all our provincial towns there
exists a public opinion which guarantees decency to a certain extent. In
the metropolis this public opinion does not exist. No one knows that I
frequent Judge and Jury Clubs, and I lose no social status if I do; and
some of the men who patronise them have no social status to lose. In one
of the lowest beershops in the New Cut the other day I saw it announced
that on Sunday night a Judge and Jury Club was held. It is too true that
we are, as Tennyson says,

"Fish that love the mud,
Rising to no fancy flies."

But man does not naturally revel in obscenity; the modesty of nature will
stick to him for years. But the Judge and Jury Clubs make you familiar
with the manners of the stews; and I solemnly believe that in Sodom and
Gomorrah nothing more filthy could have been talked about, and that this
side Pandemonium there is nothing more debasing or debased. If you wish
to see your son thoroughly depraved, send him to a Judge and Jury Club.
In a little while he will come back to you with every noble principle
blotted out, with a mind stored with pollution, and with a fitting
phraseology, ready to run a mad career of debauchery and vice. Some
fifteen years back the writer was at college, and one of his
fellow-students was a fine young fellow, the heir to a decent fortune,
and said to be connected with a noble family. The last time I was a