CHAPTER XLV.

A TRAMP IN THE BY-WAYS.

GREAT as London may believe itself to be in works of benevolence and philanthropy, there are spots in that mighty city which no one should visit without an officer of the law in his company, to warn him from the pitfalls and dangers which will beset his pathway.

One evening, feeling rather dispirited and uncomfortable, while sitting in the coffee-room of the Langham Hotel, a thought struck me that I might find amusement or novelty in some way by taking a tour through the city, and accordingly I called a cabman from the stand, in Upper Regent street, and, determining to make an effort to dissipate the blues, I jumped into the "hansom" and told the driver, an old weather-beaten looking fellow, with a buttoned-up coat and dirty neck-cloth, and wearing a black silk hat, which had once been quite respectable, but was now utterly wrecked--to "drive me anywhere in London--I don't care where as long as I can see something to interest me."

The driver, a well known character, who bore the title of "Old Smudge" among his brethren on the cab stand, and who was always in trouble with the police, replied:

"Where shall I take you, Sir? Would you like to take a look at the river? Or, mayhap you might wish to see a dog fight, or a ratting match--the Americans are partial to ratting matches--I know some on 'em are!"

[Sidenote: THE LONDON CABBIES.]

"Take me anywhere," said I from the recesses of the cab in which I had ensconsced myself.

These London Cabbies are, as a general thing, the most provoking and abusive fellows in the world, but their usefulness cannot be denied by any person who has experienced the delight of having a cab to hail when attacked suddenly by the often recurring rain storms, which serve to keep the atmosphere of Great Britain's capital in a state of perpetual moisture. There are two kinds of Cabs--the "hansom," a two wheeled vehicle, which falls back on its wheels, and is drawn by a single horse, the cabman sitting over your head with the reins elevated in his hands, and stretching through a metal ring in the roof to the collar of the horse. Then there are folding doors which can be closed to keep mud and dust from entering the cab, and a movable window fastened to the interior of the roof that can be hoisted or let down at will, and is most serviceable in case of rain or other inclement weather.

Then there is the "four wheeler," as it is called, a cab which is also drawn by one horse, but is built something after the fashion of the American coupe or brougham. This vehicle has four wheels, and is more comfortable and roomy than the "Hansom." The rates for transportation are higher, however, and the four-wheelers are used by a better class of people. There are six thousand one-horse cabs registered in London, of which number 2,352 are "six day" cabs, whose proprietors do not allow of their use on Sundays; and of "seven day" cabs, which are constantly traversing the streets, there are as many as 3,366. These cabs are all licensed, and their owners pay, annually, into the Municipal Treasury as large a sum as £10,000. The legal rate of fare in a "hansom," is sixpence a mile, and for a "four-wheeler," one shilling per mile, but the cabbies charge strangers any fare they can get.

"Leave me alone, Sir, and I'll show you some of the sights of Lunnon town," said "Old Smudge," in a hoarse voice from the top of the cab in reply to my anxious enquiry as to where we were traveling. We were then some distance from the West End of the City, and from the noises which every few minutes attracted our attention, I fancied that the cab was being driven in the direction of the Thames. I saw, dimly, the masts of the shipping and the Docks, with their adamantine fronts frowning down upon me.

The cab was stopped suddenly, and the horse was brought up on its hind legs by a jerk of the reins from "Old Smudge," who was already in conversation at the door of a beer shop, which was illuminated, and had a large number of rough-mannered customers standing around its entrance. They were a sufficiently hard looking set to make a stranger think of his safety.

"This is 'Jack Barley's "Convivial Pup,"' Sir," said the cabman to me as I climbed out of the "hansom." "This is the finest rat-pit in Lunnon, Sir."

[Sidenote: A SOIREE AT A RAT PIT.]

I had often heard of Mr. Barley before, and now I saw him face to face, a most villainous and repulsive looking beast with a scarcely healed cicatrice in his jaw, and a couple of bleary holes under his black brows, miscalled eyes. Mr. Barley was famous in his way, and enjoyed distinction among a certain class. None could tell the breed of a dog, the age of a spaniel, the pluck of a terrier, or the gouging and milling abilities of a middle weight bruiser, with Professor Barley. In such matters his judgment was final and conclusive along the Thames bank for some distance.

The proprietor escorted us through a small bar, which was ornamented with the usual sporting emblems found in low London tap rooms, and after descending a stone stairs, I found myself in a room beneath the ground floor, with small circular benches ranged in a cramped fashion to the ceiling. On these seats about one hundred men, of all grades in the sporting class, were seated. There were a few "gentlemen," God save the mark, a brace of attorney's clerks, an officer of some line regiment, and the rest of the audience were of a miscellaneous character.

There was a rat pit below the benches, a square enclosure with a board fence about four feet high, enclosing it, the boards being whitewashed, and the flooring of the pit having sawdust scattered over it.

The only light in this dreary and subterraneous den came from six greasy, unvarnished tin lanterns, in which half a dozen of cheap tallow candles were fixed, and these flickered and sputtered with great malevolence on the rascally faces of the men who swarmed around the pit.

I heard a squealing noise, and I saw a lad bring in a long and huge flat wire cage, which was swarming with gray, black, and brown rats. Way was made for the youth to enter the pit with his cage of live rodents. Jumping in he opened the cage, and thrusting his forearm fearlessly through the door he drew forth, one by one, over fifty large and ferocious rats and threw them in a heap in the pit. These animals ran about in a confused way for a few minutes, and looked with an almost human and beseeching look into the murderous faces which were gathered around the pit. Then another cage was handed to the young man, and the same ceremony was performed again until there were one hundred and five rats in the centre of the pit.

There was to be a match for fifty pounds, the proprietor of the pit having matched his dog "Skid," a wiry and ferret-eyed little terrier, to kill one hundred rats in nine minutes. Bets were now made against and for the dog, that he would or would not kill the rats in the time named, and the excitement ran high as the little venomous dog was placed in the pit carefully by his master amid considerable applause from the roughs.

[Sidenote: "SKID'S" BATTLE WITH THE RATS.]

It was simply disgusting to witness that dreadful little terrier run at each rat, shake him for a second or two in the air and then drop him quite dead on the floor of the pit, while the roughs encouraged him to his work with shouts when the rat was destroyed quickly, but occasionally when a big and ferocious rat was attacked and showed fight in return, and when the terrier seemed to hang back for a moment, a perfect storm of curses and obscene epithets were rained on the unfortunate canine. Before five minutes had elapsed the whitewashed board sides and flooring of the Rat Pit were daubed with splashes of blood, and the little terrier was foaming at the lips, and his glossy hide was flecked with dark smudgy stains. When eight minutes and forty seconds had elapsed, "Skid" snapped the neck of the last rat, and now there was nothing left in the pit but a large pool of blood on which sawdust was quickly heaped, and a bleeding mass of heaving and dying rats.

Great cheering rewarded the efforts of "Skid," who was taken up tenderly, almost lovingly by his master; and now being very sick at the stomach from the disgusting sight I left the place and took the cab, cogitating the while on what I had seen.

Disgusting as the sight of the rat butchery had proved, I afterwards learned that some two hundred men earn a living in London, and its suburbs, in catching rats alive for the use of the rat-pits. Of this number a great many, however, are paid extra by persons who wish to drive the vermin from their dwellings, and have no means of doing so but by calling in professional rat-catchers.

Some fifteen or twenty of these professional rat-catchers pursue their dangerous calling in the London sewers, preferring to catch those found in drains to the house rats, who are not as ferocious as the former. Beside, the sewer rat will fight a terrier longer and more savagely than a house rat, and as this affords good sport, the sewer rat is at a premium in the market.

These rat-catchers traverse the sewers by night, and carry lanterns and a long wire basket with lids and a handle of the same material. They use ointment which they rub on their hands and with this same composition they cover their arms, which is very distasteful to the rats, who will not bite at any human flesh that is anointed with this preparation. These men wear large slouch hats, and pursue their calling in all seasons, to make a living. Often they have terrible battles with the enraged colonies of rats, and not a few of the rat-catchers have been over-powered in the sewers when attacked, and their bones whiten many of the brick beds and slimy crevices of these dark and dismal underground passages.

[Sidenote: "PADDY'S GOOSE," RATCLIFFE HIGHWAY.]

The cab driver now desired to know if I would like to visit "Paddy's Goose," a den in "Ratcliffe Highway," one of the worst of the bad districts of London. This place is frequented by sailors of all nations, who visit the spot to dance with the abandoned women, that are hired by the proprietors of these resorts to entice the foolish seafaring men just discharged from their vessels, with more money than they are able to take care of.

"Paddy's Goose," or the "White Swan," as it is called by its owner, is perhaps the most frightful hell-hole in London. The very sublimity of vice and degradation is here attained, and the noisy scraping of wheezy fiddles, and the brawls of intoxicated sailors are the only sounds heard within its walls. It is an ordinary dance house, with a bar and glasses, and a dirty floor on which scores of women of all countries and shades of color may be found dancing with Danes, Americans, Swedes, Spaniards, Russians, Negroes, Chinese, Malays, Italians, and Portuguese, in one wild hell-medley of abomination.

The proprietor of this den is undoubtedly the most desperate villain I ever saw outside of a prison gate, a man whose face is scarred and corrugated by the foot-prints of the Devil, whose servant he has been for many years, and yet I was informed that this scoundrel was tolerated, nay, encouraged by the government, from the fact that he had great influence among English seamen. This man during the Crimean War hired steamers, with bands of music, and served the Admiralty as a "crimp" for enlisting sailors, or rather for trapping them by drugging them first and then "burking" them off to the men-of-war, which needed fresh complements of seamen.

I did not stay long in this Devil's-Tavern, and I am sure my readers will excuse me from going into particular mention of the beastliness and orgies I saw there.

Dismissing "Old Smudge" with a fee that seemed to meet his approbation, I turned my steps in the direction of the river, not doubting for a moment but that I should find further food for reflection. I came upon the Thames suddenly as a vision, and saw it stretching out in all its dark and terrible beauty, just above Shadwell. I had taken my seat on an old dismasted hulk that lay some distance off in the river, and which I had reached with considerable difficulty by clambering from bowsprit to bowsprit among the silent shipping, on whose masts and canvas God's silent stars shone brightly down.

[Sidenote: WAITING FOR THE TIDE.]

I had not been sitting long there when a clumsy-looking and broad-bottomed boat passed me, directly below the hulk, one man pulling in the boat while another leaned over and seemed to support something, dark and bulky in shape, from the stern of the wherry.

A chill came over me, and in a faint voice I asked the man what he had in the skiff?

"Oh, yer honor, we were Waiting for the Tide below Bridge. We goes out every night, me and Tim, to look for bodies--we gets twenty shillings a-piece for them, and all we can find, and Tim's got a dead 'un now, and 'praps he's got a good haul, for there's a sparkling ring on Its finger,--mayhap yer honor would like to buy it."

Trailing slowly in the water was a lifeless corpse, and the boatman was tearing a bright object from its stiff forefinger.

Hastily I rose and turned my face away from the River which had given up its dead in this startling manner.

I went home thoroughly cured of the blues, and saw no more "sights" that night.