While Mr. Charrington's attention was being drawn to the music halls of the East End--by the incident previously referred to--an American friend of his came into his house one evening, and said, in great agitation, "I have just seen a horrible thing. I was passing the door of a music hall when a man, with a girl upon his arm, was just entering the gates. I saw a woman, evidently his wife--for she had a wedding ring on her finger, and recognised him at once--rush up to this man and cry out, 'Oh, John, whom have you got there?' The man hesitated for a moment, and as he did so, the girl left his arm and rushed inside the place. "The man turned his head, looked at his wife with an evil expression, and then hurried in after his companion. The poor wife naturally attempted to follow them both, but the man in uniform at the door stretched out both his arms and stopped her, saying, 'Oh, no, we don't want you in here.'" This new incident stirred Mr. Charrington's indignation afresh, and he thought, "If this is a fair sample, these places ought to be called music _hells_ instead of music halls." He determined to see for himself whether this was an isolated case or not. Further investigations proved that it was not so, as I shall shortly show. He soon found out what the character of these places really was, but, believing that most people were ignorant of their horrible character, he began active steps immediately. The first thing he did was to see what powers the law could enforce in cases of the kind. He found that the law _was_ quite strong enough to deal with them, as a clause existed to the effect that _any person could be dealt with who harboured prostitutes_; for the purpose of prostitution or not. This, Mr. Charrington thought, was quite enough, and after he had done all he could, by personal influence, to deter respectable people from going to a certain notorious East End hall, in due course he opposed the license at the Quarter Sessions at Clerkenwell. This, however, had but little result. Although in one year he actually proved by witnesses prostitution to be going on in three parts of the premises of the hall in question. To his horror and amazement, the magistrates (with a few noble exceptions) allowed the license to continue, although every minister of religion in East London, including the Bishop of Bedford, and 1800 respectable inhabitants, signed the protest against the house as "the nightly resort of prostitutes." Mr. Charrington's worst fears as to the evil results of music halls were one morning more than confirmed by reading in the _Daily News_--