REPORT THE SECOND.
THE ROYAL PANDEMONIUM PALACE.

That we are the most moral people on
the face of the earth, was once almost the
boast of the complacent Briton. Now, such
a vaunting would be disclaimed as arrogance,
and in something of this key: we
have our faults, and failings, and vices; and
in the metropolis, particularly, there is much
to amend, scenes of rude vice, the squalor
of wickedness, as it were, arising from the
vastness and the complex organisation of
the great city, which we call, with pardonable
pride, the capital of the world. But in
the English people, and the London people,
there is a true moral sense, after all; and
none of that coarse publicity, that flaunting
of vice which so shocks us in Paris. We may
justly thank Providence for having a police
force, as well as a House of Lords, which,
directed by a nice public opinion, takes care
that vice shall pay the proverbial homage
to virtue, or go at once to the Station.
"No, sir," says Mr. Complacent Briton, "we
may have a scandal now and again; but
we have none of your brazen Paris morals
over here. They must keep in the dark.
Men are pretty much the same all the world
over. I don't set up to be squeamish, but
we won't have decency affronted here."

Some such remark Mr. Complacent
Briton has often made to the observing
foreigner, parting with him, perhaps, in the
neighbourhood so congenial to aliens, or
actually, perhaps, in sight of a mouldy square,
towards the smaller hours; at one side of
which rises a large illuminated lantern of
Moorish pattern, all ablaze with windows,
and stars, and devices, and through whose
doors are pouring in and out streams of
men and women. This flaming tabernacle,
he will be told, is the ROYAL PANDEMONIUM
PALACE; and, as an acute Frenchman, he will
take its measure, as it were, in a second—
for it speaks in a language that he perfectly
understands—and with a smile of delight
will enter to spend his night there.

It seems like a great vicious beehive, all
seething within and without, with life and
humanity. The blaze and the light in
which the insects revel suffuse it through
and through. Round the openings rises
the eternal din of arriving broughams
and hansoms, their setting down and
driving away. The far-off East-ender and
shop boy, passing by, gazes with
simplicity, and thinks this must be a very
palace of delights, and is tempted in.
Wiser men than he, who read their newspapers
conscientiously, may be tempted in
too, perhaps, even into bringing their wives
and daughters, for have they not read in
broadsheets that no more admirably
"conducted" place exists, and that we are under
the deepest obligations to its "enterprising"
proprietor.

Light in floods is always enticing—it
is beauty, richness, colour, gold, silver,
jewels; and there is plenty of it here.
Were there another intelligent foreigner,
with misgivings as to whether all this were
not a sham, a mere pinchbeck imitation of
his dear Paris, which would break down
on examination, and discover the uncouth
John Bull morality underneath; his mind
would be set at rest by a short study of
the successively arriving hansoms, which
stream up, each filled with what is termed
"a lovely burden;" that is, with more
ermine, and velvet, and bags of yellow
hair, than would be quite agreeable to Mr.
Complacent Briton. Each lovely burden
descends briskly, pays her fare
handsomely, and is gallantly helped out by
a bearded, brawny officer of the establishment,
dressed in gold lace, wearing earrings,
who greets each with a natural familiarity,
founded on an acquaintance of
many thousand successive nights. The
number of these burdens is something
alarming. As it grows towards eleven, it
becomes a perfect block; burden after burden
is set down, and hurries in, fearful
of losing a second, for the moments are
golden. Up comes, too, the frequent
brougham, dark and glistening—the lady
from the opera—who drops the white-tied
"votary of pleasure," and drives away.
The votary of pleasure hurries in. Let
us do the same.

Through the blaze at the entrance, we
admire those noble soldiers, each about
six feet two high, splendid men, privates
in a corps, enrolled, no doubt, in defence
of the order and morality of the house.
They wear blue and gold tunics, with
bright scarlet facings, scarlet and gold
képis, and white belts, exquisitely pipe-
clayed. The uniform size of these heroes is
something amazing; their great chests and
stalwart arms seem suitable for ox-felling,
for which they are not required. In a well
conducted establishment like this, Mr.
Complacent Briton will be told, where all classes
are mixed up in the pursuit of rational
pleasure, it is quite necessary to have strong
men on the spot, who can rally in a
moment, and stamp out the beginning of
disorder. In a well-conducted establishment