The night side of London / by J. Erving Ritchie.

  • Ritchie, J. Ewing (James Ewing), 1820-1898.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The night side of London / by J. Erving Ritchie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Up and down Rat cliff-high way do the sailors of every country under heaven stroll—Greeks and Scythians, bond and free. Uncle Tom’s numerous progeny are there—Lascars, Chinese, bold Britons, swarthy Italians, sharp Yankees, fair-haired Saxons, and adventurous Danes—men who worship a hun- dred gods, and men who worship none. They have ploughed the stormy main, they have known the perils of a treacherous sea and of a lee shore; but there are worse perils, and those perils await them here. It is night, and the glare of gas gives the street a cheerful appearance. We pass the Sailor’s Home, a noble institution w'hich deserves our cordial support and praise, and find at almost every step pitfalls for poor Jack. Every few yards we come to a beer-shop or a public-house decorated as gaudily as possible, rejoicing in some nautical sign, such as The Jolly Sailor, the doors of which stand temptingly open, and from the upper room of which may be heard the sound of the mirth-in- spiring violin, and the tramp of toes neither “ light nor fantastic.” Occasionally you can peep behind a curtain par- tially unveiled, and catch a hasty glimpse of a