Transcribed from the 1880 Tinsley Brothers edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org DAYS AND NIGHTS IN LONDON; OR, _STUDIES IN BLACK AND GRAY_. * * * * * BY J. EWING RITCHIE, AUTHOR OF “THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON,” “RELIGIOUS LIFE OF LONDON,” “BRITISH SENATORS,” ETC. * * * * * LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1880. [_All rights reserved_.] * * * * * CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. PREFACE. London has vastly altered since the Author, some quarter of a century ago, described some of the scenes which occurred nightly in its midst of which respectable people were ignorant, which corrupted its young men and young women, and which rendered it a scandal and a horror to civilisation itself. The publication of his work, “The Night Side of London”—of which nearly eight thousand copies were sold—did something, by calling the attention of Members of Parliament and philanthropists to the subject, to improve the scenes and to abate the scandal. As a further contribution to the same subject, the present volume is published. Every Englishman must take an interest in London—a city which it has taken nearly two thousand years to build; whose sons, to enrich which, have sailed on every sea and fought or traded on every land; and which apparently, as the original home and centre of English-speaking people, must grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of the world. WRENTHAM HOUSE, HENDON, _February_, 1880. CONTENTS. PAGE I. THE WORLD OF LONDON 1 II. THE AMUSEMENTS OF THE PEOPLE 24 III. OUR MUSIC-HALLS 39 IV. MORE ABOUT MUSIC-HALLS 54 V. SUNDAYS WITH THE PEOPLE 90 VI. THE LOW LODGING-HOUSE 117 VII. STUDIES AT THE BAR 155 VIII. IN AN OPIUM DEN 170 IX. LONDON’S EXCURSIONISTS 182 X. ON THE RIVER STEAMERS 196 XI. STREET SALESMEN 208 XII. CITY NUISANCES 225 XIII. OUT OF GAOL 261 XIV. IN A GIPSY CAMP 271 XV. THE STREET BOYS OF LONDON 280 I.—THE WORLD OF LONDON.