But the thousands outside who did not get in—what are they about? Look at that respectable mechanic; you saw him in the morning as happy as a prince, and almost as fine; he stands leaning against the lamp-post, apparently an idiot. His hat is broken—his coat is torn—his face is bloody—his pockets are empty; not a friend is near, and he is far away from home. It is clear too what he has been about. Come on a few steps further—three policemen are carrying a woman to Bow-street. A hooting crowd follow; she heeds them not, nor cares she that she has lost her bonnet—that her hair streams loosely in the wind—that her gown (it is her Sunday one) is all torn to tatters—or that her person is rudely exposed. The further we go, and the later it grows, the more of these sad pictures shall we see. Of course we do not look for such in Regent-street, or Belgravia, or Oxford-street, or the Strand. Probably in them we shall meet respectable people staggering along under the influence of drink—but they are not noisy or obstreperous—they do not curse and swear—they do not require the aid of the police. We must go into the low neighbourhoods—into St Giles’, or Drury-lane, or Ratcliffe-highway, or the New-cut, or Whitechapel—if we would see the miseries of London on Boxing night. We must take our stand by some gin-palace. We must stay there till the crowds it has absorbed and poisoned are turned loose and maddened into the streets. Then what horrible scenes are realized. Here an Irish faction meet, and men, women, and children engage in a general _mêlée_, and cries of murder rend the air, and piercing shrieks vex the dull ear of night. There two mates are stripped and fighting, who but this morning were bosom friends, and who to-morrow would not harm a hair of each other’s heads. Here a mechanic with a bloody head is being borne to the neighbouring hospital, to lie there a few months at the public expense, while his family are maintained by the parish. Again, we meet two wives nursing young babes scared into unnatural silence, clenching their fists in each other’s faces, and with difficulty restrained from acts of more savage violence by their drunken husbands. Their day’s holiday has come to this. In the metropolis in 1853, the number of public-houses was 5729—the number of beer-shops 3613. These figures give a total of 9342. If on this night we suppose on an average one fight in the course of the evening takes place in each of these drinking shops, we can get some idea of what goes on in London on a Boxing night. In passing at midnight down Drury-lane, I see three fights in a five minutes’ walk. Enlightened native of Timbuctoo, will you not pity our London heathens and send a few missionaries here! THE MOGUL,