Nasby in Exile: or, Six Months of Travel in England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, with many things not of travel
John Locke · en
Yet the people surged up and down the streets, hurrahing and shouting
for the Queen, for the Prince of Wales, for the Royal family, for
themselves, for anybody they could think of. The public houses were open
long after other places of business were closed, and there was a
constant stream of thirsty people gliding from behind the half-closed
doors out upon the street to yell until another dram became necessary.
The customers were not limited to the sterner sex by any manner of
means. There were crowds of young girls ranging from fourteen to twenty,
poor working girls, who had saved all of their scant earnings they could
in anticipation of this holiday, who boldly pushed their way with a
coarse laugh, through the crowd of men and, standing at the bar, would
call for and drink their bitter beer, or ale, or stout, or gin, even,
with all the effrontery of an old toper. And old women there were too,
who would quietly glide into the compartments marked "private bar," and
there drink their brandy or Irish whisky. Throughout it all there seemed
to be a dogged determination to become intoxicated, just as though there
could be no pleasure, the Queen's birthday could not be celebrated
properly, unless every one filled himself up with ardent spirits.
As it grew later, the crowds increased both in size and disorder.
Notwithstanding the fact that most of the illuminations had been
extinguished, the masses had had a taste, and they wanted more. They
became momentarily ruder and more boisterous. As the time approached for
the closing of the publics, the crowd received fresh installments of the
worse class of women, and then drunken women tried to do worse than the
drunken men, and they succeeded. A woman thoroughly under the influence
of liquor is something simply terrible to see, and here we saw it. On
that night the air rang with their ribald jokes and coarse songs, as
they jostled each other in their unsteady walk.
[Sidenote: A HOLIDAY IN PARIS.]
This, it must be remembered, is not a scene that occurred down in
Cheapside, or in the Seven Dials, or the streets down near the river.
No, indeed. Pall Mall, one of the most aristocratic streets in London,
Regent street, the Broadway of London, Piccadilly, the Haymarket, these
were the scenes of this frightful display, and evidently nothing was
thought of it. The police made no arrests, and did not seem to know that
there was anything occurring that was not perfectly allowable and
justifiable. So the wild debauch went on all night, and it was not until
the gray light made its appearance in the east that the city quieted
down and the streets no longer echoed with the maudlin cries of the host
of people who celebrated in their own peculiar style the anniversary of
their Queen's birthday.
[Illustration: THE AMERICAN PARTY OUTSIDE A CAFÉ ON THE BOULEVARD.]