e
are spending an enormous sum in sending the Gospel into foreign parts. I
don't say but what this is praiseworthy--Indians, Turks, Jews, Assyrians,
bond and free, are they not all children of one common Father with
ourselves?--but let us not overlook after all the claims of home. I do
not speak now of the lowest classes, of the refuse and outcasts of our
towns, of the Pariahs of our civilization; I speak of the heathens in
satin and broadcloth, of the vice that wears patent leather boots and the
best French kid, of the intemperance that feasts at rich men's tables,
and that is born of hock, and claret, and champagne.

But what has all this to do with the Haymarket? Wait awhile, and your
curiosity will be satisfied. It is day-time, and we will stroll up
thither. There is nothing peculiar about the place, except the unusual
number of gin-palaces, hotels, French restaurants, oyster-shops,
coffee-houses with the blinds drawn, as if to show they did not care to
do business, and the general sleepy appearance of the waiters. There is
a cab-stand seemingly inclined to shut up shop, and if it were not for
the omnibuses there would be but few indications of life. On the
right-hand side as you go from Pall Mall there are most respectable
shops, but the wonder to me is how they manage to attract custom
sufficient to enable them to pay what must be their very heavy rents. At
the top of the Haymarket we find the street from Leicester-square to
Piccadilly always full of traffic, and just opposite are the
oyster-shops, and Turkish divans and cafes, all quiet enough now, but at
the witching hour of night destined to be filled to suffocation with fast
men and flash women, with cabs and carriages, with old hags with fruit
and flowers, male vendors of pencils and knives, policemen and bullies,
fools and rogues. Let us skip over a short interval of time, and suppose
the neighbouring church bells to have chimed the midnight hour. A few
steps take us to the Lowther Arcade. We take our stand with a crowd just
opposite a building with an entrance lighted with gas, which we learn to
be a handsome casino--one of the handsomest in London--devoted to dancing
and drinking. The hour of closing has arrived, and the votaries of
pleasure, as it is called, are leaving. There are an immense number of
women all splendidly dressed--from the young girl who has not yet learnt
the bitterness of the life she has ventured on, to the woman thoroughly