Think what years and years of tedious culture must
have elapsed to produce this concentrated essence of vice. How many must
have died in the seasoning--how many must have turned back shuddering as
they saw the dark ending to their infatuated career--how many weeping
parents must have won back to decency and the observance of moral and
social law--how many the want of pecuniary means must have compelled into
a reluctant abstinence! Such a crop could only be reared in such a Sodom
and Gomorrha as ours. That landlord, gloating over his ill-gotten gains,
could not have sunk into so fallen a condition rapidly. It has taken
years to make him what he is. There is no excuse for him, and he knows
it. It is not for the honest refreshment of the weary or the _bona fide_
accommodation of the public that his house is open. The real public have
been in bed for hours. These men around us are here for immoral
purposes. These women are on the same bad errand, and that they may
better pursue their vocation, here they come and drink; but he sells his
poison, thinking not of the mischief it will do, but of the gain it will
bring. Is he not a degraded man, with his double chin, and dirty face,
and low forehead? can you see in him one trace of benevolence or
humanity? Do you doubt this?--spend your last farthing in his bar, pawn
every article of clothing you have, and go with an empty pocket and in
rags, and you will soon be ordered to the door. You see he is now
turning out that wretched creature. He has allowed her to drink till she
has no more money; but she solicited chance customers, and they treated
her to gin, and so the landlord let her stop; but now she is so drunk as
to interfere with his business, and he turns her houseless and friendless
out into the streets. Let us watch her. She is too far gone to have any
decency left. Drink and sadness combined have tortured her brain to
madness. Her curses fill the air; a crowd collects; the police come up;
she is borne on a stretcher to Bow-street, and in the morning is
dismissed with a reprimand, or sentenced to a month's imprisonment, as
the sitting magistrate is in a good temper or the reverse. The longer we
stop here the more of such scenes shall we see, for with such publicans
and sinners Catherine-street abounds. I have known life lost here in
these midnight brawls; yet by day it has a dull and decent appearance,
and little would the passing stranger guess all its rev