cy in the lowest and worst reality of
forms are ever gay. There was Mother H.'s, where bucks assembled, and
reckless women danced and drank for a few short years ere they died
wretchedly in parish poor-houses, or sought oblivion and repose in the
dark waters of the neighbouring Thames. Up and down Catherine-street
what wretchedness masked in smiles has walked--what sin in satin--what
devilish craft and brutal lust, aye, and, what is worse than all, what
unavailing repentance and regret!

A very fleeting population is that of Catherine-street. These women,
commencing their life at eighteen, are few of them supposed to last more
than eight years; and if you see them in the day-time, before they are
painted and dressed up--with their red eyes and bloated faces, you will
think few of them will last even that short time; but they pass on one by
one to the spirit land, not as did Antigone, conscious of duty done,
though wailing her unwedded state, nor as Jephthah's high-souled
daughter, for whom Hebrew maidens devoutly wept--but with body and soul
alike loathsome and steeped in sin. Here in Catherine-street vice is a
monster of a hideous mien. The gay women, as they are termed, are worse
off than American slaves, and the men at the best are but drunken fools
frittering away time and money and health, and rooting out from their
hearts all trace of the divine that may be yet lingering there. The West
is the more fashionable quarter, and the glory of Catherine-street is
fled. Almost every house you come to is a public-house, or something
worse. Here there is a free-and-easy after the theatres are over; there
a lounge open all night for the entertainment of bullies and prostitutes,
and pickpockets and thieves, greenhorns from the country or London-born;
here a dancing saloon, which we are told in the advertisement no visitor
should leave London without first seeing, and there a coffee-house where,
when expelled from gayer places of resort, half intoxicated men and women
take an early breakfast. All round you are bitter memories. Every stone
you tread is red with blood; you can almost hear the last dying shriek of
virtue, before, by means of the tempting purse or the hocussed draught,
the poor victim--feebler in her struggles every hour--be lost for ever.
Yet the gas burns brightly by night, and there is dancing, and wine, and
songs, and in the small hours you may hear a hollow laughter, sadder even
than cries and tears.