aughter, who

"Didn't live in Vestministere,
But the t'other side of the vatere."

Well, I'd rather be one of them than the proprietress of yon house, with
the gas lamp over the door, who by this time has been borne by the Great
Northern in a first-class carriage, side by side with senators, and city
magistrates, and clergymen, and it may be your wife or mine, to her
country seat. We are standing in the very temple of vice--its ministers
are all round us. Not one unholy appetite but can be gratified here;
gamblers, blacklegs, prostitutes, surround us on every side. Here law,
and order, and decency are alike all violated. If it be in the
prohibited hours, we can go into coffee-houses and get as much brandy as
we like, which of course is easily removed when the signal is made that
the inspector is coming, and is again brought out when he is gone. But
let us knock at this door; the glare of gas indicates that there is
something going on, though the cold fowl in the window, and the cigar
shop close by, scarcely inform us what. We pay for admission, and,
entering through a narrow passage, find ourselves in a large saloon, with
a balcony all round. On the ground-floor of course there is dancing, and
at the end is a bar where drink is being rapidly supplied. Up in the
balcony are young fellows sitting with gaily-dressed women, drinking
sherry-cobblers and smoking cigars. In time the room gets crowded, and
the people in it grow a little the worse for drink. Though we can scarce
see for the smoke, and hear on account of the roar of many tongues, it is
not difficult to perceive in the hilariousness of some, in the bad temper
of others, in the stupidity of most, and in the foul language of all,
that the drink is producing its legitimate effect. That girl in satin
and rouge in another hour we shall see lying on the stone pavement with
an unmeaning grin, till she is borne by policemen on a stretcher to the
lock-up. That fine manly lad, out to see life, will sleep to-night where
the mother now praying for him in her dreams little imagines. _She_
would not have sunk so low, _he_ never would have blasted a mother's
hopes, had it not have been for the drink. Come out with me into the
air. What a crowd there is round us, all looking pale and seedy in the
clear light of a summer morn! What has kept them out all night? What
has made them what they are but the drink? You start at that moving mass
of sores and rags