Meanwhile there was a great flare of music of a certain sort; and a multitude of catchpenny shows, mountebanks, music halls, theatres, merry-go-rounds, and dancing pavilions gave the place the appearance of a stupendous county fair. I do not think that I ever saw anywhere, except at a picnic or a barbecue among the Negroes of the Southern States, people who gave themselves up so frankly and with such entire zest to this simple, physical sort of enjoyment. Everywhere there were eating, drinking, and dancing, but nevertheless I saw no disorder; very few people seemed to be the worse for drinking, and in no instance did I see people who showed, in the disorder of their dress or in the blotched appearance of their faces, the effects of continued excesses, such as one sees in so many parts of London. Individuals were, for the most part, neatly and cleanly dressed; each class of people seemed to have its own place of amusement and its own code of manners, and every one seemed to keep easily and naturally within the restraints which custom prescribed. I do not mean to say that I approve of this way of spending the Sabbath. I simply desire to point out the fact, which others have noticed, that the effect of the drinking habit seems to be quite different in England from what it is in countries on the Continent. I had an opportunity to observe the evil effects of the drinking habit upon the Englishwomen of the lower classes when I visited some of the police courts in the poorer parts of London. When I remarked to a newspaper acquaintance in London that I wanted to see as much as I could, while I was in the city, of the life of the poorer people, he advised me to visit the Worship Street and Thames police stations. The Worship Street station is situated in one of the most crowded parts of London, in close proximity to Bethnal Green and Spitalfields, which have for many years been the homes of the poorer working classes, and especially of those poor people known as houseworkers and casuals, who live in garrets and make paper boxes, artificial flowers, etc., or pick up such odd jobs as they can find. The Thames station is situated a little way from London Dock and not far from the notorious Ratcliffe Highway, which until a few years ago was the roughest and most dangerous part of London. Perhaps I ought to say, at the outset, that two things in regard to the London police courts especially impressed me: first, the order and dignity with which the court is conducted; second, the care with which the judge inquires into all the facts of every case he tries, the anxiety which he shows to secure the rights of the defendant, and the leniency with which those found guilty are treated. In many cases, particularly those in which men or women were charged with drunkenness, the prisoners were allowed to go with little more than a mild and fatherly reprimand.