For One
Of The Waiters At Our Hotel I Would Have Been Willing To Pay As
Much As Fifty Cents, Provided They Killed Him Very Slowly.
Because
of the reasons named, however, I had to come away without making
any deal, and I have always regretted it.
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. Regardless of the weather one of these bedrabbled
creatures stations herself just outside the door of a pub. Along
comes a mother with a thirst and a child. Surrendering her offspring
to the temporary care of the hag the mother goes within and has
her refreshment at the bar. When, wiping her mouth on the back
of her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the youngster she gives
the other woman a ha'penny for her trouble, and eventually the
other woman harvests enough ha'penny bits to buy a dram of gin
for herself. On a rainy day I have seen a draggled, Sairey-Gamp-looking
female caring for as many as four damp infants under the drippy
portico of an East End groggery.
It is to the cafes that the early-closing law chiefly applies.
The cafes are due to close for business within half an hour after
midnight. When the time for shutting up draws nigh the managers
do not put their lingering patrons out physically. The individual's
body is a sacred thing, personal liberty being most dear to an
Englishman. It will be made most dear to you too - in the law
courts - if you infringe on it by violence or otherwise.
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