-its club-houses; and its dens of pollution, amid
whose shadows the grim spectres of degraded humanity struggle out a
wretched existence. Into this great city--wonderful and complicated in
itself--the modern Babylon of the world,--gentle reader, now follow me
in imagination, and I will introduce you to the subject of the following
story.

It is the Saturday evening of a chilly night towards the end of
November, 1869, that season of the year in which the grey old buildings
of London assume a more sombre aspect than during the sunny days of
summer. The twilight had congealed into darkness after a somewhat foggy
day, and mantling its shadows around the homes of the destitute and
degraded, tinging the wretched inmates with melancholy, and even making
their lives more miserable and less tenacious to the world. The dark
streets have been lighted up. The great tide of human beings that have
during the day thronged the thoroughfares, has partially subsided; but
thousands of pedestrians are still bustling to and fro; while the din of
carriages are heard on every street. The provision shops are crowded
with noisy customers. The coffee-houses are steaming forth their
delicious viands, where throngs of both men and women are greedily
satisfying their appetites: while thousands of ale-houses and gin-hells
are pouring forth their poisonous liquids, where crowds of miserably
degraded wretches of both sexes in human shape are swallowing down the
deadly elements and rioting in hellish revelry. Alas! how many a home
has been converted into a mad-house, yea, even into a very hell, by
these dens of pollution, in which dwell the accursed spirit-dealers of
iniquity.

Alas! how many a fond wife, with her little ones, perhaps destitute of
every domestic comfort, is at that very moment anxiously awaiting the
return of her husband. Hour after hour may pass away, until the very
depths of night appear to grow sad with the dreary sorrow of her heart,
and at length he returns--but not as a loving and sober husband; not as
a tender and home-providing father; not as a man, with all the noble
attributes of the human nature; not as a Christian, with the spiritual
Balm of Gilead, with which to soothe the cankering ills of his
household;--no, not as either he returns, but rather as a madman escaped
from the prison walls of Bedlam, or as fiend let loose from the nether
kennel.

But, nevertheless, there were thousands of happy households that evening
en