his pleasures are concerned. I
can gather more about him from the way in which he spends his leisure
hours than I can from his active employments of the day. They are poor
miserable philosophers indeed, and guilty of an enormous blunder, who, in
their investigation into the moral and social condition of the people,
refuse to notice the amusements of the people in their hours of gaiety
and ease. I make, then, no apology for introducing you to Canterbury
Hall.

The Upper Marsh, Westminster-road, is what is called a low neighbourhood.
It is not far from Astley's Theatre. Right through it runs the South
Western Railway, and everywhere about it are planted pawnbrokers' shops,
with an indescribable amount of dirty second-hand clothes, and monster
gin-palaces, with unlimited plate-glass and gas. Go along there what
hour of the day you will, these gin-palaces are full of ragged children,
hideous old women, and drunken men. "The bane and the antidote," you may
say, "are thus side by side." True, but you forget that youth in its
search for pleasure is blind, and sees not the warning till it is too
late; and of the hundreds rushing on to the Canterbury Hall for a quiet
glass, none think they will fall so low as the victims of intemperance
reeling, cursing, fighting, blaspheming, in their path. But let us pass
on. A well-lighted entrance attached to a public-house indicates that we
have reached our destination. We proceed up a few stairs, along a
passage lined with handsome engravings, to a bar, where we pay sixpence
if we take a seat in the body of the hall, and nine-pence if we do the
nobby and ascend into the balcony. We make our way leisurely along the
floor of the building, which is really a very handsome hall, well
lighted, and capable of holding fifteen hundred persons; the balcony
extends round the room in the form of a horseshoe. At the opposite end
to which we enter is the platform, on which is placed a grand piano and a
harmonium, on which the performers play in the intervals when the
professional singers have left the stage. The chairman sits just beneath
them. It is dull work to him; but there he must sit every night smoking
cigars and drinking, from seven till twelve o'clock. I fancy I detect a
little touch of rouge just on the top of his cheek; he may well need it,
for even on a fine summer night like this the room is crowded, and almost
every gentleman present has a pipe or a cigar in his mouth. Let u