At The Outset Of The Chapter Immediately Preceding This One I Said
The English Had No Night Life.
This was a slight but a pardonable
misstatement of the actual facts.
The Englishman has not so much
night life as the Parisian, the Berliner, the Viennese or the
Budapest; but he has more night life in his town of London than
the Roman has in his town of Rome. In Rome night life for the
foreigner consists of going indoors at eventide and until bedtime
figuring up how much money he has been skinned out of during the
course of the day just done - and for the native in going indoors
and counting up how much money he has skinned the foreigner out
of during the day aforesaid. London has its night life, but it
ends early - in the very shank of the evening, so to speak.
This is due in a measure to the operation of the early-closing
law, which, however, does not apply if you are a bona-fide traveler
stopping at your own inn. There the ancient tavern law protects
you. You may sit at ease and, if so minded, may drink and eat
until daylight doth appear or doth not appear, as is generally the
case in the foggy season. There is another law, of newer origin,
to prohibit the taking of children under a certain age into a
public house. On the passage of this act there at once sprang up
a congenial and lucrative employment for those horrible old-women
drunkards who are so distressingly numerous in the poorer quarters
of the town.
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