e mean while, as the door is being
opened and the coast is clear, I avail myself of the opportunity, and
leaving the night-house, am soon dreaming in my feverish slumber that I
have just been garotted and left for dead at the door of my domestic
establishment, to the intense agony of my wife and children,--of course,
by the two amiable young people aforesaid,--and I feel for some days
after as if I had suffered terribly from a species of night-mare. So
hideous is the life, so degraded the company, so revolting are the
scenes, at these night-houses, I know not why the law permits them to be
open. I am sure they can answer no good or moral end. Mr Norton, a few
days since, said, in deciding a case at the Lambeth police-office, he
hoped a law would soon be passed to close night-houses. On this head the
police magistrates are unanimous.

HIGHBURY BARN.

A writer in _Chambers's Journal_ some time since called attention to the
peculiar attractions of Highbury Barn. What are these attractions? I
confess that the place has connected it with the eating and drinking
associations of years; that here generations of cockneys have dined; that
here, Sunday after Sunday, they have come to drink bottled stout and
smoke; that it is extensively patronized by shopmen and milliners; that
the society is not of the most refined order; and that the love made in
it is not of the noblest and purest character. I cannot understand how
_Chambers_ could have been got to puff up such a place to the public. I
am sure the decent public will not thank _Chambers_ for the puff.

Highbury Barn is an admirable illustration of the way in which Acts of
Parliament are evaded. In 1852 Mr Hinton applied for and obtained a
license for music, and he stated in his petition on that occasion, that
his object was to have the license as an adjunct to dinner-parties, a
great number of which were held there; and at that time he had no idea
whatever of having dancing in the place. In 1854, however, a different
state of things arose, and, from a combination of causes, the parties and
festivals at Highbury Barn fell off, and competition was so great, that
Mr Hinton, having a large establishment, in which a great deal of capital
was invested, was compelled to do something to meet the public taste, as
he says, or, as I might say, to create it. Accordingly, on Whit Monday
of that year, he opened his establishment for musical entertainments with
the band of