In a country where, as M. Taine says in his History of English Literature, religion and morality are coins which you must have in your pocket either good or counterfeit, the monde oÙ l’on s’amuse is here the monde oÙ l’on se cache. The demi-mondaine is not a prominent personage over here, and the Englishman who glides into her house at nightfall, with his coat-collar turned up to his ears, and his hat lowered over his eyes, would never think of taking her to a theatre or of putting her into his carriage in Hyde Park. For this, I think he deserves a good mark. Call it hypocrisy if you like; it is deference to public opinion, and I prefer the vice that hides its head to the vice that gives itself airs. I heard with my own ears, a few years ago, in a Parisian drawing-room, a lady of good society compliment a young man on the pretty sinner she had seen him with in a box at a theatre. And the receiver of the compliment seemed mightily pleased. His look said, “Yes, it is So-and-So, who is on the best of terms with me.”

Men do not meet around the dining-table of the English cocotte, nor in her drawing-room. They do not go to her house to have a chat, much less to pay her court: her sittings are held within closed doors. It is not Aspasia nor Lais, it is a fine animal of a girl that friend John pays a visit to, when he has not time to go to Boulogne. He returns home, and no one, not even his most intimate friend, is the wiser for his little nocturnal expeditions. Next day, with rosy cheeks and downcast eyes, he accompanies his mother and sisters to church, bearing a goodly number of books of devotion under his arm.

Hypocrisy! you will cry. No, it is not. Unless you accept La Rochefoucauld’s definition of hypocrisy: “homage that vice renders to virtue;” for, thanks to this hypocrisy, the virtuous woman has not in public to yield her rightful place to the other, who, conscious of her degradation, keeps in the shade. The virtuous woman can reign, her rights undisputed; and, in the inner family circle, the conduct of the young men is rarely a subject of scandal for the ladies, who are the honour of the house, and who certainly have a right to exact a little consideration for their feelings.

I know a good Englishman, whose abode is about nine miles distant from Brighton. Every Saturday he pays a little anonymous visit to this town.

“What on earth takes you to Brighton every Saturday?” said one of his sisters laughingly to him one day.

——“My dear child, I go to have my hair cut,” replied the sly dog, without wincing.

Next best to the whole truth, is the truth.

I know another, who, Briton though he be, begins to feel the effects of the motion of the Ocean, as he invests in a railway ticket at Charing Cross. Yet this does not prevent his passing a couple of days at Boulogne about once a fortnight. He has never satisfactorily explained the reason of these little trips to me. All I know is, that if you want to tease him, you have only to say to him: “You have been to Boulogne, I think?” or, “Do you know Boulogne?”

There are no recognised houses of ill-fame in England, a fact of which the virtuous John is immensely proud. Not that there is much cause for it. If English law refuses to officially recognise vice and to regulate it within four walls, it tolerates it in the open air, in the streets, and above all, in the parks; and I cannot see what public morality gains by it, unless it be the encouragement to deny, even in the face of evident facts, something which is not recognised by law, and the satisfaction of knowing that Nemesis follows the nocturnal frequenters of the parks, in the shape of colds in the head ... and the rest. I have spoken elsewhere of the processions of Regent Street and the Strand, of the fair that is held in the shameless crowd that swarms about the Haymarket and in the parks, from sunset to two in the morning. I will not return to the subject; it would be out of place to dwell long on the matter and enter into sickening details. Thanks to the efforts of Lord Dalhousie, one of the most popular and intelligent members of the House of Lords, it is probable that before long one of the most hideous sights of London—a sight certainly unique in Europe, will no longer meet the eyes of people unfortunate enough to be out of doors after nightfall. Lord Dalhousie will, I think, succeed in passing an Act of Parliament which will close the career of the streets to girls under sixteen. That will be a grand improvement.

By-the-bye, it is high time that I should repair, whilst I think of it, a grave error that I committed. I said, alas! I even put it down in black and white, that there was a Society in England for the protection of animals, and I was ill-inspired enough to add, “a Society for the protection of women does not yet exist.” Well, it appears it does. You would never have thought it, would you? Nor I either. Nothing is more certain, however: this Society has existed for years, it appears. Consequently, the other day, on taking up my paper, I was not surprised to see that a London magistrate had not feared to fine a brute of a husband ten shillings, for having smashed his wife’s head with the tongs.[4] My compliments to a Society that inspires such terror in a magistrate of the great city. After such an example as that, few husbands will be opening their wives’ heads to see what there is inside. Let me hasten to make my most humble apologies to the Society.

All writers of books upon England mention the fact that, in the lower classes, a man gets rid of a lawful wife for the sum of a few shillings, and the critics never fail to cry “Exaggeration!” “Caricature!” Of course I did not escape the usual diatribes on the subject. I can understand being charged with having exaggerated, for I have remarked this year in the papers, two cases of wives having been sold for sixpence and a pint of beer respectively, whereas I had said that the price of the transaction varied from half-a-crown to ten shillings.

The article is going down, it is evident.

These cases must be much more frequent than they would appear to be from newspaper reports. Such transactions are naturally settled by private contract, and, as the English take very good care to keep at a respectable distance from these gentry, unique in the world, there is no means of knowing much about the matter. Now and then, some idiot, who has got rid of his wife in this unceremonious fashion, is simple enough to imagine that he can go and marry another directly. Then, accused of bigamy, he is sent to the Court of Assizes, the papers publish the case, and the affair thus comes to light.

The other day, a man who had married again after having sold his first wife, said to his judge: “My former wife is very happy with her new owner, my Lord; set me free, let me go home to my new wife, and I promise your Lordship that I will feed her.” (Sic.)

The appeal was a touching one.

The judge condemned him to six months’ imprisonment.

Truly his Lordship had no bowels of compassion.