permitted to revisit metropolitan earth, he
would be quite at home; he would find a
congenial neighbourhood of old associations
draw him towards the cellar which his friend,
Probert, once inhabited, opposite to where
the swell-mobsman shot the policeman some
weeks ago, a few doors down on the right
hand side of the Haymarket.

About the top of this thoroughfare is diffused,
every night, a very large part of what is
blackguard, ruffianly, and deeply dangerous in
London. If Piccadilly may be termed an artery
of the metropolis, most assuredly that strip of
pavement between the top of the Haymarket
and the Regent's Circus is one of its ulcers.
By day, the greater part of the shops and
houses betray the character of the locality.
Some there are, indeed, respectable; but they
appear to have got there by chance, and
must feel uncomfortable; the questionable
ones preponderate. Observe the stale drooping
lobsters, the gaping oysters, the mummified
cold fowl with its trappings of flabby
parsley, and the pale fly-spotted cigars; and
then look into the chemists' windows, and
see, by the open display, in which direction
his chief trade tends. Study the character
of the doubtful people you see standing in
doorways—always waiting for somebody as
doubtful as themselves—and wonder what the
next "plant " is to be, which they are now
cogitating. It is always an offensive place to
pass, even in the daytime; but at night it is
absolutely hideous, with its sparring snobs,
and flashing satins, and sporting gents,
and painted cheeks, and brandy-sparkling
eyes, and bad tobacco, and hoarse horse-
laughs, and loud indecency. Cross to the
other side of the way, go out into the
mud, get anywhere rather than attempt
to force your passage through this mass of
evil; for it will most probably happen—as if
this conglomeration of foul elements was not
enough to stop the polluted stream trying to
flow on—that a brass band has formed a
regular dam before the gin-shop, so dense
that nothing can disturb it, except the
tawdry bacchantes blundering about the
pavement to its music. I am not an ultra-
moralist. I have been long enough fighting
the battles of life upon town, to stand a
great deal that is very equivocal, unflinchingly:
but I do say, that this corner of
the Haymarket is a cancer in the great
heart of the metropolis, and a shame and
a disgrace to the supervision of any police.
A convivial " drunky," who inclines to
harmony as he goes home at night, when there is
not a soul in his way to be annoyed, by
expressing his confidence, through all changes, in
dog Tray's fidelity, has been quieted, before
this, by a knock on the head from a
truncheon. A poor apple-woman, striving to
earn a wretched pittance against the birth of
an infant evidently not far off, is chased from
post to pillar by any numbered letter of the
alphabet; but here, wanton wickedness riots
unchecked. The edge of the pavement is
completely blockaded. If you happen to be
accompanied by wife, daughter, sister, any
decent woman, and to be waiting, or not
waiting for one of the omnibuses that must
pass there—go anywhere, do anything, rather
than attempt to elbow through the phalanx
of rogues, and thieves, and nameless shames
and horrors.

From an extensive continental experience
of cities, I can take personally an example
from three quarters of the globe; but I have
never, anywhere, witnessed such open ruffianism
and wretched profligacy as rings along
those Piccadilly flagstones any time after the
gas is lighted.

It is during the weeks of Epsom, Ascot,
and Hampton, that the disciples of
Thurtell's school of pursuits hold high festival.
Two or three years back, there were various
betting houses here, with their traps always
set open to catch their prey; but although
these are abolished, something of the kind is
still going on, which the police know (or
pretend to know) nothing about. The swarm of
low sporting ruffians hovering about here, at
all times, is incredible. You know they have
all figured, are figuring, or will figure, in
card-cheating cases and dirty bill transactions.
They have all the bandy legs and tight
trousers, the freckled faces and speckled
hands, and grubby, dubby nails that
distinguish this fraternity. Theirs are the strong-
flavoured cigar and highly-coloured brandy,
the snaffle coat-links, and large breast-pin,
the vulgar stock, and the hat-band—always
the hat-band; is it a last clinging to
respectability, to show that there was somebody
belonging to them once? And when to this
unsavoury locust-cloud the closing casino
adds its different but equally obstructive
swarm, and they all flutter about in the
lamp-lights, amidst an admiring audience of
pickpockets, flower-sellers, rich country fools,
who think they are " seeing life," and
poor scamps who show it to them, such
a witch's cauldron is seething in the public
eye, and splashing in the face of decency,
as is quite intolerable in this land at this
date.

I entreat the intelligent magistrates in
whose division ROGUES' WALK lies, to leave
their dinner-tables some evening, and go and
judge for themselves whether it is anybody's
business to do anything towards the
correction of this scene of profligacy. Why
should no quiet person be able to walk upon
its skirts, unmolested, and why should all
modest ears and eyes be shocked and
outraged in one of the greatest thoroughfares of
this metropolis?