Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/339

Charles Dickens] select party, is what few can attain to. Wan decayed faces, sickly with over drink and over smoke, attest what suffering is undergone in this pursuit. To be able to take a friend past one of the glorious giants in scarlet and blue and receive a gracious nod, that is another goal. A word from a singer, is quite a crown, for it betokens freedom of the stage. Such is the picture of this "well-conducted place of amusement," which is praised in the leading journal, which is open every night, which has firm root in this great metropolis, and which has been so successful, that by and by, we shall have copies multiplied all over the city. Yet for all its admirable conducting, a more deadly or pernicious school of vice cannot be imagined.

There are certain immoral windmills which it would be sheer folly to fight with, and which it would be impossible to control; but it is not too much to say that the Royal Pandemonium Palace, Foreigneering-square, has worked the ruin of thousands of foolish boys; has shown them a smooth and expeditious road to destruction, and is doing its work steadily every night, and adding to the many problems by which London is embarrassed. The whole system, in every detail, is conducted on the most demoralising principles. The squandering of money invited at every turn; the bravos dressed up in stage uniform, and who are merely the hired bullies of the place; the affectation of strict decency and order, the very magnificence, are all so many disguises, and add to the fatal character of the show. The Royal Pandemonium Palace is, indeed, no more than a vast public-house, "admirably conducted;" but really no more in principle than the humble ale-house, where the fiddler or Ethiopian is introduced to play for the company.

But mark the precious inconsistency of our police and magisterial regulations. If it was known that to such a place Moll Flanders and her companions resorted to meet old friends and make new ones, the licence would be lost for ever. Some of the Haymarket refreshment houses which Moll is fond of patronising, are pursued with merciless rigour, and the owners properly dragged to the magistrate and fined. But with the Royal Pandemonium it is a different story. It is so well conducted that not a dozen or so, but hundreds of Moll Flanderses are invited to assemble, and assemble with exceeding profit to themselves. The police would not for the world bring the excellent proprietor before the magistrate; for he is unwearied in co-operating with them. Punctually at twelve the house is cleared, it is not kept open a second beyond the time. The gaudy bullies hustle every one out. When the dancing licence is renewed each year, the inspector has not a fault to find with this well-conducted house. To it, unless something be done, and done speedily, we shall owe the public recognition of vast undesirable French habits and morals; and it is to the shame of legislation, that such an institution should be protected by the law, which affects to reprove its principle. At this moment, under ordinary magistrates' law, this plague-spot, which is training up so many dozen per night of George Barnwells and Brummagem Lovelaces, might be stamped out. There is a law against the business or pastime that goes on, and even against the "harbouring" or assembling of certain special classes of the community. In other cases this is strictly, and even harshly enforced. But these parties do not keep vast cathedrals blazing with lights and colour, they have not capital, nor do they give large employment, nor do they keep hired bullies—and above all they have not influential patrons, of wealth and rank. A few intelligent policemen, well acquainted with London faces and London figures, would see enough in ten minutes to justify a summons, and a heavy fine; which, repeated persistently, would soon reduce the attractions of the place to good music, fine dancing, exquisite scenery, and of course shut up the place. How the intelligent Frenchman will smile and shrug, when he learns that my Lord Chamberlain cannot lay his finger on places like this—that really require his supervision. Royal Pandemonium Palace, indeed. It is a scandal that anything "Royal" should prefix what is merely a factory, busy every night in working up material for bankruptcy, divorce, and police courts, for the hospital, for the grave, and certainly not for heaven.

HERRINGTOWN-BY-THE-SEA.

you like your sea-side place "au gratin," if you enjoy walking all day on fried breadcrumbs, Herringtown is exactly the sort of place for you; for the small gravel, of which its sea-side terraces are composed, is for all the world like those breadcrumbs on which roasted larks usually recline, and is as aggravating to the mind as it is distressing to the feet.

Fishermen, riding-masters, small men with