Here a portion seeks supper at the neighbouring oyster-rooms, and a rush is made at the waiters as they bring in oysters and pale ale, as if the parties had been famishing all day. Then we knock at the door of a place at one time much patronized by a certain marquis, and still bearing his name; and we find some that we saw leaving the casino here drinking; or we go into another, where the crowd is so dense we have scarce room to stand, and find the same occupation vigorously carried on. Of course at the places which do not have closed doors the bars are all filled, and drinking seems the order of the night. In the mean while let us march up Piccadilly. The small hours have now come, yet the place is redolent with life. Young fellows are singing “We won’t go home till morning”—policemen are bidding the unfortunates that won’t fee them move on—hideous females are waiting to rob the drunkards they may meet in their path—and men with hawk eyes and hungry aspect are hovering all round like so many birds of prey; and boys—for they are everywhere, all dirt and rags, yet happy in the richness of young life, for childhood, even the most abandoned, can never be sad—dance round us, in the hope that “your honour” will find a copper for “poor little Jack,” singing to us of that far-famed Ratcatcher’s Daughter, who “Didn’t live in Vestministere, But the t’other side of the vatere.” Well, I’d rather be one of them than the proprietress of yon house, with the gas lamp over the door, who by this time has been borne by the Great Northern in a first-class carriage, side by side with senators, and city magistrates, and clergymen, and it may be your wife or mine, to her country seat. We are standing in the very temple of vice—its ministers are all round us. Not one unholy appetite but can be gratified here; gamblers, blacklegs, prostitutes, surround us on every side. Here law, and order, and decency are alike all violated. If it be in the prohibited hours, we can go into coffee-houses and get as much brandy as we like, which of course is easily removed when the signal is made that the inspector is coming, and is again brought out when he is gone. But let us knock at this door; the glare of gas indicates that there is something going on, though the cold fowl in the window, and the cigar shop close by, scarcely inform us what. We pay for admission, and, entering through a narrow passage, find ourselves in a large saloon, with a balcony all round. On the ground-floor of course there is dancing, and at the end is a bar where drink is being rapidly supplied. Up in the balcony are young fellows sitting with gaily-dressed women, drinking sherry-cobblers and smoking cigars. In time the room gets crowded, and the people in it grow a little the worse for drink. Though we can scarce see for the smoke, and hear on account of the roar of many tongues, it is not difficult to perceive in the hilariousness of some, in the bad temper