This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler [Picture: Logo of Everett & Co.] First Edition, June, 1908. Second ,, September, 1908. Third ,, March, 1909. Cheap ,, March, 1914. London in The Sixties (WITH A FEW DIGRESSIONS) * * * * * By ONE OF THE OLD BRIGADE London: EVERETT & CO. LTD. 42 ESSEX STREET, STRAND, W.C. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. 1860 1 II. THE TOWER 13 III. MOTT’S AND CREMORNE 25 IV. KATE HAMILTON’S AND LEICESTER SQUARE 37 V. THE NIGHT HOUSES OF THE HAYMARKET 48 VI. EVANS’S AND THE DIALS 61 VII. THE RATCLIFF HIGHWAY 73 VIII. THE BOOTHS ON EPSOM DOWNS 83 IX. RACING _par Excellence_ 94 X. THE EPIDEMIC OF CARDS 111 XI. THE COUP DE JARNAC 127 XII. THE PUBLIC HANGING OF THE PIRATES 130 XIII. THE HOSTELRIES OF THE SIXTIES 140 XIV. THE DRAMA (LEGITIMATE AND OTHERWISE) 151 XV. MOSTLY “OTHERWISE” (CONTINUED) 163 XVI. USURERS AND MILLIONAIRES 175 XVII. SOME CURIOUS FISH OF THE SIXTIES 182 XVIII. SPIRITUALISM AND REALISM 192 XIX. THE ROCK AND THE CAPE 205 XX. EASTWARD-HO! 222 XXI. THE GUILLOTINE AND MADAME RACHEL 232 XXII. REMINISCENCES OF THE PURPLE 243 XXIII. DHULEEP SINGH AND FIFTY YEARS AFTER 257 XXIV. THE LAST OF THE OLD BRIGADE 264 CHAPTER I. 1860. LONDON in the sixties was so different from the London of to-day that, looking back through the long vista of years, one is astonished at the gradual changes—unnoticed as they proceed. Streets have been annihilated and transformed into boulevards; churches have been removed and flats substituted; night houses and comfortable taverns demolished and transformed into plate-glass abominations run by foreigners and Jews, whilst hulking louts in uniform, electro-plate and the shabby-genteel masher have taken the place of solid silver spoons and a higher type of humanity. So extensive indeed has been the transformation, that, if any night-bird of those naughty days were suddenly exhumed, and let loose in Soho, he would assuredly wander into a church in his search of a popular resort, and having come to scoff, might remain to pray, and so unwittingly fall into the goody-goody ways that make up our present monotonous existence.