Moore.

The celebrated novelist Ouida has made a general indictment against the "cruel ugliness and dulness" of the streets of London.

The greatest city in the world, according to Mdlle. de la RamÉ, has "a curiously provincial appearance, and in many ways the aspect of a third-rate town."

Even the aristocratic quarters are "absolutely and terribly depressing and tedious"; and as for decorative beauty, this is all she can find of it in London:—

An ugly cucumber frame like Battersea Park Hall, gaudily coloured; a waggon drawn by poor, suffering horses, and laden with shrieking children, going to Epping Forest; open-air preachers ranting hideously of hell and the devil; gin-palaces, music-halls, and the flaring gas-jets on barrows full of rotting fruit, are all that London provides in the way of enjoyment or decoration for its multitudes!

Instead of which, I am free to maintain that no town of my acquaintance has such diversity of entertainment.

Paris has the bulge in the trifling, foolish matter of theatrical plays and players. But London has more and finer playhouses; as good opportunities of hearing great music; and infinitely larger and better-appointed music-halls.

London has now the finest libraries, museums, and picture-galleries; and as for out-door entertainment, no town possesses such remarkable variety as is offered at the Imperial Institute, the Crystal and Alexandra Palaces, Olympia, and Earl's Court. Thereby hangs a tale.

It must be that the provincial friends who visit me are not as other men. I hear of people receiving guests from the country and taking them out for nice walks to the National Gallery, South Kensington Museum, the Tower, and other places of cultured dissipation provided by the generous rate-payer to discourage and kill off the cheap-tripper; but I have no such luck.

To my ardent, blushing commendation of national eleemosynary entertainments, the rude provincials who assail my hospitality reply with a rude provincial wink.

Frequent failure has, I fear, stripped my plausibility of its pristine bloom. Time was when I could boldly recommend Covent Garden Market at four o'clock in the morning as a first-rate attraction to the provincial pilgrim of pleasure, but your stammering tongue and quailing eye are plaguy mockers of your useful villainy.

Mrs. Dangle herself begins to look doubtfully when, on our periodical little pleasure trips, I repeat the customary: "Tower! eh? It will be such a treat!"

Ah me! Confidence was a beautiful thing. The world grows too cynical. Earl's Court is the thin end of the wedge by which the hydra-headed serpent of unbelief is bred to fly roughshod over the thin ice of irresolute dissimulation, to nip the mask of pretence in the bud, and with its cold, uncharitable eye to suck the very life-blood of that confidence which is the corner-stone and sheet-anchor of friendly trust 'twixt man and man.

Be that as it may, my praise of County Council Parks and County Council Bands, of Tower history and Kensington culture, is as ineffectual as a Swedish match in a gale.

My visitors, as with one accord, reply, "That is neither here nor there. We are going to Earl's Court."

Thus, Captandem had come to town, and said "he wanted to see things."

I tempted him with the usual programme.

"I am told," I insinuated, "that the Ethnographical Section of the British Museum 'silently but surely teaches many beautiful lessons.'"

"I daresay," he sneered.

"The educational facilities furnished by South Kensington Museum"—

"Educational fiddlesticks," interrupted he.

"The Tower," I went on, "is improving to the mind."

"I have had some."

"The National Gallery"—

"Be hanged!" he snorted. "Do you take me for an ArchÆological Conference? or a British Association picnic?"

"Well," I began, in my most winning Board-meeting manner, "if you don't like my suggestions, you can go to"—

"Earl's Court," he opportunely snapped.

He then explained that he had been reading in The Savoy, a poem by Sarojini ChattopÂdhyÂy on "Eastern Dancers," commencing thus:—

When I had finished reading this too-too all but morsel of exquisiteness, the Boy said he'd be punctured if he could exactly catch the hang of the thing (the Philistine!), but he thought he would like some of those (the heathen!), and having seen an announcement that a troupe of Eastern Dancers were then appearing at Earl's Court, he had determined to let his passionate, with fire-aflaming spirit "drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens."

On the way to Earl's Court, I filled up the Boy with such general information about Nautch Girls, as I had gathered in my studies.

I informed him that nothing could exceed the transcendent beauty, both in form and lineament, of these admirable creatures; that their dancing was the most elegant and gently graceful ever seen, for that it comprised no prodigious springs, no vehement pirouettes, no painful tension of the muscles, or extravagant contortions of the limbs; no violent sawing of the arms; no unnatural curving of the limbs, no bringing of the legs at right angles with the trunk; no violent hops or jerks, or dizzy jumps.

The Nautch Girl's arms, I assured him, move in unison with her tiny, naked feet, which fall on earth as mute as snow. She occasionally turns quickly round, expanding the loose folds of her thin petticoat, when the heavy silk border with which it is trimmed opens into a circle round her, showing for an instant the beautiful outline of her form, draped with the most becoming and judicious taste.

She wears, I continued, scarlet or purple celestial pants, and veils of beautiful gauze with tassels of silver and gold. The graceful management of the veil by archly peeping under it, then radiantly beaming over it, was in itself enough, I assured him, to make one's eyes celestially pant, but—

"Dis way for Indu juggler, Indu tumbler, Nautch Dance," at this moment cried a shrill voice at my side; and I perceived that we were actually standing outside the Temple where the passionate spirits in celestial pants drink deep of the hush of the hyacinth heavens!

The performance had begun. An able-bodied, well-footed Christy Minstrel was doing a sort of shuffling walk-round, droning out the while a monotonous wail in a voice that might have been more profitably employed to kill cats.

"Lor'," the Boy complained, "will that suffering nigger last long? Couldn't they get him to reserve his funeral service for his own graveyard? Ask them how soon they mean to trot out the exquisite, subtle Tremulous Dawns,—the swaying and swinging Sandalwood Slumber-soft Flutter in celestial pants,—the wantonly winding Lingering Languishers?"

I approached one of the artistes—a lean and dejected Fakir, picturesquely attired in a suit of patched atmosphere.

"That's very nice," I said conciliatorily, "very nice indeed, in its way. But we don't much care for Wagner's music, nor Christy Minstrels. We would prefer to take a walk until your cornerman is through: at what time will the Nautch Girls appear?"

"Yes, yes," the heathen Hindu replied, with a knowing leer, "Nautch Girl ver' good, ver' good; Lonndonn Charlee, he likee Nautch Girl, ver' good."

"Yes," I said. "What time do they kick off?"

"Yes, yes, ver' good, ver' good, Nautch Girl," the mysterious Oriental replied; "she Nautch Girl bimeby done now; me go do conjur, ver' good, ver' good."

"Nautch Girl nearly done?" I cried. "Why, where is the Nautch Girl!"

"That Nautch Girl is dance now, ver' good, ver' good. Lonndonn Charlee, he likee Nautch Girl, ver' good."

At last the horrible truth dawned on me!

The person we had taken for a Christy Minstrel was the wantonly winding, lingeringly languishing Nautch Girl!!!

After that we visited other "side shows," and saw more dejected Hindoos perform marvellous feats of jugglery and conjuring, with the aid of trained mongooses, monkeys, and goats. Also an extraordinary game of football by Burmese players, who catch a glass ball on their necks and ankles as dexterously as Ranjitsinhji catches a cricket ball with his hands. Also we saw the acrobats who balance themselves on a bamboo pole by gripping it with their stomachs—a trick which I have since practised with but incomplete success.

We also saw the juggling of an Indian humorist with two attendants, who, if they did not realise all the wonders we have read about Indian conjurers, did at least perform miracles with the English language and the linked sweetness of music too long drawn out.

The attendants sat on the ground and beat monotonous drums, what time the conjurer walked to and fro and played a peculiarly baneful type of Indian bagpipe.

"Ram, ram, ram, ram, kurte heren ugh!" sang the conjurer.

"Ugh! ugh! ugh! ugh!" sang the chorus, rolling their eyes and swaying their shoulders.

"Baen, deina, juldee, chup, chup!" droned the conjurer.

"Chup, chup, chup, chup," wailed the chorus.

"Hum mugurer hue! hum padre hue! hum booker se mur jata hue!" cried the conjurer.

"Hue! hue! hue! hue!" replied the chorus.

Then, "one, two, three, four, five, nine, sumting, fifteen, twenty," cried the conjurer, fumbling with his conjuring gear; "see dere, dere de egg; Lonndonn chicken egg, chicken egg, chicken egg."

"Chicken egg, chicken egg," repeated the chorus in triumphant tones; and banged the mournful drums.

By weird Hindu enchantment, they beguiled Captandem to the platform to assist, and having got him there, proceeded to make him wish he wasn't.

"Lonndonn Charlee," cried the conjurer, triumphantly introducing him; "Lonndonn Charlee, Lonndonn Charlee, say now uchmeechulouchuadmee," and grinned like a heathen.

"Uchmeechulouchuadmee," wailed the chorus.

"Uchmee—uchmee—oh! I can't say it," cried poor London Charlie, and the chorus, showing all its flashing teeth, victoriously droned a mocking "Bu-u-uh!" which obviously completed London Charlie's discomfiture and distress.

"Lennee me Lonndonn sixpence, Lonndonn Charlee," cried the conjurer; and the youthful Captandem, after much inward searching, produced the coin demanded.

The conjurer took it in his hand, placed it under a flower-pot, and said: "Ulla ulla juldeechupalee"; and the chorus shouted, "Chupalee."

Then followed two or three more experiments and practical jokes on London Charlie's confiding innocence, till at last London Charlie, unwilling to bear any more ridicule, leaped from the platform and desperately fled the scene—looking as unlike the cocksure London Charlie that went up, as doth the tin-kettled feline maniac which has fallen amongst felonious boys, to the smug and purring pet of the ancient spinster's fireside.

Poor little London Charlie.

It was not till long afterwards that he remembered his sixpence.

Poor Captandem!

Still he enjoyed himself, and, if the truth must be told, there are moments when even I am less amused by the mummies and fossils of the museums than by the lights, the fountains, the colour, and the movement of Earl's Court.

I wonder why it never occurs to the philanthropists and municipalities which provide picture-galleries, libraries, and other elevating institutions for the people, to try the effect upon Whitechapel or Ancoats of a genuine place of amusement.

The class from which our philanthropists chiefly spring, regard with suspicion nearly everything in which the common people find spontaneous pleasure; and, instead of helping the development and improvement of such natural sources of delight, they only aim to "elevate" the masses by mortifying their flesh and wearying their souls.

To "elevate" them, the philanthropists close their eyes to all that delights the common people, and thrust upon them, willy-nilly, something which interests them not at all, something which they cannot understand, something which nips and chills and infinitely bores them.

The philanthropists, when they give of their benefactions to the people, cannot, or will not, see that to teach a mouse to fly, it is needful for the teacher to begin by stepping down to the earth. They insist, as a condition of their generosity, that the people shall be thereby flabbergasticated, petriflummoxed, and aggrawetblankalysed with everlasting doldrums.

Show me, anywhere, 'twixt Widnes and Heaven—which is as wide a stretch as imagination may compass—any public institution founded by private munificence for the people's delectation, to which the people flock with cheerful alacrity, or wherein the people bear themselves with anything like holiday jauntiness.

The public museums and picture-galleries are very fine institutions, but how much do they affect or brighten the lives of the mass? How do they touch the common people? How many of the Slum-scum come? and how often? Do they enjoy the painted and sculptured masterpieces presented to their admiration? Is it possible that, without guidance or explanation, they can understand the beauty of these, their treasures?

Behold the stragglers that come—how puzzled, awestruck, furtive, and ill-at-ease they are! There is fear of the Superior Person in their face, and of the policeman in their tread. They stare at the frames, at the skylights, at the polished floors, at the attendants, and at the modified Minervas in No. 9 pince-nez who are the most regular frequenters of such places; but they scarcely see the pictures. They walk on their toes to prevent noise, cough apologetically, shrivel under the withering glances of the modified Minervas, and look ostentatiously unhappy.

The modified Minervas walk round with the air of exclusive proprietorship. They are at home. They pervade the place. The young ones stare with mild amazement or languid curiosity at the unaccustomed, aberrant hewer of wood or drawer of water, as if speculating as to which of the more remote planets he sprang from; the elder ones glare at him through their eyeglasses with such scathing disdain as to confirm him in his opinion that his entrance there was an unpardonable liberty.

The public museums and picture-galleries are made, not for the common people of the seething slums, but for the modified Minervas of the genteel suburbs. These are the legatees of the public philanthropists. That which is given for the "elevation of the masses" tends in practice to elevate nothing except the already tilted tips of their particularly cultured noses. The benevolent Croesus produces no happiness by his benefaction, except that which these ladies derive from the admiring contemplation of their refined superiority.

What the common people want is the glitter of spectacle, the intoxication of beauty and grace, of music and dance; the sensation of light and brightness and stirring movement.

The wisest thing to do with appetites so old-established and deep-rooted is, not to suppress, but to guide them.

Obstruct them, and they will run into dark and dirty channels out of sight; recognise and cultivate them in the clear light of day, and they may produce in every town even better sources of amusement than Earl's Court.