The Night Side of London Part 2

She wanted Will for worse or better, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

She'd have married, but dad wouldn't let her.

Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

And so she went and got a knife, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

She broke her heart and lost her life, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

Kemo, kimo, &c.

Then Josh he felt his dander risin', Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

So he went and swallow'd pisin, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

The village folks laugh'd in their sleeve, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

For Jordan's a hard road to travel, I believe, Sing song Polly won't you try me, oh?

Kemo, kimo, &c.

But, compared with many of the places frequented by both s.e.xes, Canterbury Hall is a respectable place. I may think that more rational amus.e.m.e.nt might be found than by sitting smoking and drinking in a large room on a hot summer's night. I may have my doubts whether all go home sober-the presence of a policeman in the room indicated that at times there was need for his services-but I believe the a.s.sociation of song and drinking and amus.e.m.e.nts pernicious in the extreme; and, knowing that man needs relaxation-that he must have his hour of amus.e.m.e.nt as well as of work-I cannot too earnestly press upon the advocates of Temperance reform the desirableness of their out-bidding the public-house in the attempts to cater for the entertainment of the people. That they do not do so, is clear. Where once we had a National Hall in Holborn, for the action of moral influences, a publican has erected a hall-for singing and drinking-capable, I should think, of holding 1200 people, and crammed every night. Then the "Lord Raglan" holds as many. Nor are these alone the only compet.i.tors for public patronage; their name is Legion.

RATCLIFFE-HIGHWAY.

London is several cities rolled into one. If we walk along Regent-street, it is a city of gorgeous shops,-if you turn into the West, of parks and palaces,-if you traverse St Giles, of gin and dirt;-again, in Belgravia it is rich and grand,-in Pimlico it is poor and pretentious,-in Russell-square it is well to do,-in Islington it is plain and pious; and, strange as it may seem, the people are equally localised in their ideas. Jobson, the Stock-broker, lives at Clapham, and for years he has never set foot in any other streets than those leading from the Stock Exchange to that select and favoured spot. The law clerks, who live in Pimlico, seldom stray further than John-street, Bedford-row. The city gents from Islington and Holloway generally cl.u.s.ter round the Bank or the Post-office, and for years go in the morning and return at night by one unvaried route. The races are equally distinct. The swells in the Park, the millers in Mark-lane, the graziers in the new cattle-market, the Jews in Houndsditch or Holywell-street, the prim pale lads in the city, the sailors in Deptford and Wapping, the German sugar-bakers in Whitechapel, really form distinct communities, and are as worth studying as any race of

"Red Indians dwelling beyond the sunset, And the baths of all the Western stars."

I should not like a son of mine to be born and bred in Ratcliffe-highway.

That there would be a charming independence in his character, a spurning of that dreary conventionalism which makes cowards of us all, and under the deadly weight of which the heart of this great old England seems becoming daily more sick and sad, a cosmopolitanism rich and racy in the extreme,-all this I admit I should have every reason to expect, but, at the same time, I believe the disadvantages would preponderate vastly.

How is this? you ask. Does not Ratcliffe-highway form part of our highly-favoured land? I grant it does. I confess that there the Queen's writ is a power, that it boasts the protection of the police, that it pays rates and taxes, that it has its churches and chapels, that it is not cut off from the rest of the empire, that it is traversed by railways, by cabs and busses, and by postmen. Nevertheless, Ratcliffe-highway is not a favourite spot of mine. I saw lately a letter from an Englishman in the _Times_, complaining of the magistrates of Hamburg, because when he was coming from church with some ladies, he strayed into a street where his sense of decorum was very properly shocked. I know the street as I do every street in Hamburg, and I know this, that it ill becomes Englishmen to write of the immorality of Hamburg, or any other continental town. Let him walk down Ratcliffe-highway or any other spot where vice loses all its charms by appearing in all its grossness. I fear that it is not true generally to the eyes of the cla.s.s she leads astray, that

"Vice is a monster of such hideous mien, That to be hated, needs but to be seen,"

but I think it is true, or at any rate it contains a portion of truth, so far as regards Ratcliffe-highway, a stroll in which place is sure to shock more senses than one. In beastliness I think it surpa.s.ses Cologne with its seven and thirty stenches, or even Bristol or a Welsh town.

Ratcliffe-highway lies contiguous to the commerce and the port of London.

The men and boys engaged in navigating merchant vessels belonging to ports of the British Empire were in 1851, 240,298; and of this mult.i.tude a large portion at some time or other resides in Ratcliffe-highway. In 1856, 826 vessels, with a tonnage of 498,594 tons, entered the port of London. Jack, when he's ash.o.r.e, resides here, and Jack ash.o.r.e is the weakest and simplest of men. As an ill.u.s.tration of the way in which Jack is done-whether in any provincial port or London, for crimps are the same all the world over,-let me refer to a case heard at the Tynemouth Police Court towards the end of last year. A man named Glover, the landlord of a low public-house in Clive-street, a crimp and sailors' lodging-house keeper, was summoned under the 235th and 236th clauses of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, charged with having taken into his possession the moneys and effects of James Hall, a seaman, and with having refused to return and pay the same back to Hall when requested to do so. It appears, after being engaged in the Black Sea in the transport service during the late war, Hall, who had to receive 30 15_s._, took up his quarters at Glover's, and made him his "purser." Glover charged him 14_s._ a-week for his lodgings, the same as the Sailors' Home, but at the end of 16 days he told him that his money was all gone, and bought the plaintiff's neckerchief of him for 1_s._, which he also spent in drink.

The sailor, finding himself dest.i.tute, had applied to the authorities, who summoned Glover. Glover, in his defence, stated that Hall had spent his money in drink and treating, keeping a couple of bagpipers to play to him all the time he was on the spree. Glover produced the following extraordinary account against Hall:-"Dec. 9th.-20 pints of rum, 2 6_s._ 6_d._; 20 quarts of beer, and 15 ounces of tobacco, 15_s._ 10th.-8 gla.s.ses of rum, and 2_s._ 6_d._ borrowed money, 4_s._ 6_d._ 11th.-Borrowed money, 2_s._ 6_d._; 5 pints of rum, 5 gills of rum, and 15 quarts of ale, 1 12_s._ 6_d._; 6 ounces of tobacco, 2 gla.s.ses of gin, and 2 gills of brandy, 6_s._ 6_d._ 12th.-Cash, 2_s._, 15 pints of rum, and 28 gills of rum, 3; 4 quarts, half a gallon, and 22 gills of beer, 1 3_s._ 9_d._; 15 gla.s.ses of rum and 11 gla.s.ses of beer, 9_s._ 3_d._; pint of brandy and 16 gla.s.ses of gin, 8_s._; 36 ounces of tobacco and 3 gla.s.ses of gin, 12_s._ 4_d._ 13th.-18 pints of rum, 15 gills of rum, and 26 quarts of beer, 3 4_s._; 26 bottles of lemonade, and 28 gills of beer, 1; 14 ounces of tobacco, 6 gla.s.ses of gin, 6_s._ 2_d._; 12 gla.s.ses of gingerade, and cash 5_s._, 8_s._; 1 week's board, 14_s._ Paid for clothes, 1 2_s._ 6_d._; 2 pints of rum, 10 gills of rum, and 4 gla.s.ses of beer, 16_s._; 24 gla.s.ses of spirits, 9 quarts of beer, and 7 ounces of tobacco, 14_s._ 7_d._ 15th.-16 half gla.s.ses of spirits, 10 gla.s.ses and 2 gills of rum, and 1 ounce of tobacco, and beer, 2_s._ 10_d._; fortnight's board, 1 8_s._; cash, 2 18_s._; spirits, tobacco, and rum, 4_s._ 1_d._; cash, 5_s._ 17th.-Cash, 7_s._; 20 gla.s.ses of spirits, and 8 quarts of ale, 9_s._ 4_d._ 18th.-Ale, spirits, and tobacco, 16_s._ 4_d._ 19th.-35 gla.s.ses of spirits, and 20 gla.s.ses of ale, and 2 gla.s.ses of brandy, 1 4_s._ 10_d._ 20th.-Ale, tobacco, and cash, 7_s._ 24th, 25th, and 26th.-Ale and spirits, 7_s._ 11_d._, and other items, making up the amount in hand. The defendant had refused to deliver up Hall's clothes on the plea that the man was in his debt. Now in Ratcliffe-highway such men as Glover abound. It is unnecessary then to describe the character of the tradesmen in Ratcliffe-highway, or the character of their wares. At one shop there are the enormous boots, which only navvies and sailors have strength to wear; at another there are oilskin caps, and coats and trousers, or rough woollen shirts, piled up in gigantic ma.s.ses. One shop rejoices in compa.s.ses and charts, and another in the huge silver watches which Jack invariably affects. The descendants of Abraham swarm here. They sell little fish fried in oil; they deal in second-hand clothes; they keep lodging-houses; I believe they stick at nothing to turn a penny, and don't break their hearts if the penny turns out a dishonest one. Everything has a nautical adaptation. The songs sung are nautical. The last time I was there an old woman was singing to a crowd of the "Saucy Sailor Boy" who, coming disguised in poverty to his lady love, is by her ignominiously rejected, to whom rejecting he tells of his real riches, and by whom the rejection is eagerly recalled, but in vain, for the Saucy Sailor Boy declares:-

"Do you think I am foolish, love?

Do you think I am mad, For to wed a poor country girl, When there's fortune to be had?

"So I'll cross the briny ocean, Where the meadows are so green, And since you have refused my offer, love, Some other girl shall wear the ring."

Up and down Ratcliffe-highway 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 hundred G.o.ds, and men who worship none. They have ploughed the stormy main, they have known the perils of a treacherous sea and of a lee sh.o.r.e; but there are worse perils, and those perils await them in Ratcliffe-highway. It is night, and the glare of gas gives the street a cheerful appearance. We pa.s.s the Sailor's Home, a n.o.ble inst.i.tution which 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, the doors of which stand temptingly open, and from the upper room of which may be heard the sound of the mirth-inspiring violin, and the tramp of toes neither "light nor fantastic." There were public-houses here-I know not if the custom prevails now-to which was attached a crew of infamous women; these bring Jack into the house to treat them, but while Jack drinks gin the landlord gives them from another tap water, and then against their sober villany poor Jack has no chance. I fear many respectable people in this neighbourhood have thus made fortunes. Jack is p.r.o.ne to grog and dancing, and here they meet him at every turn. Women, wild-eyed, boisterous, with cheeks red with rouge and flabby with intemperance, decked out with dresses and ribbons of the gayest hue, are met with by hundreds-all alike equally coa.r.s.e, and insolent, and unlovely in manners and appearance, but all equally resolved on victimising poor Jack. They dance with him in the beer-shop-they drink with him in the bar-they walk with him in the streets-they go with him to such places as Wilton's Music Hall, where each Jack Tar may be seen sitting with his pipe and his pot, witnessing dramatic performances not very artistic, but really, on the score of morality, not so objectionable as what I have seen applauded by an Adelphi audience, or patronised by the upper cla.s.ses at her Majesty's Theatre. And thus the evening pa.s.ses away; the publicans grow rich, the keepers of infamous houses fatten on their dishonest gains-obese Jews and Jewesses become more so. The grog gets into Jack's head-the unruly tongue of woman is loosened-there are quarrels, and blows, and blood drawn, and heads broken, and cries of police, and victims in abundance for the station-house, or the hospital, or the union-house, or the lunatic asylum, save when some forlorn one (and not seldom either is this the case), reft of hope or maddened by drink and shame, plunges in the muddy waters of some neighbouring dock, to find the oblivion she found not in the dancing and drinking houses of Ratcliffe-highway.

JUDGE AND JURY CLUBS.

This is a comic age in which we live. We are overdone with funny writers. The ghastliest attempts at liveliness surround us on every side. I would not bring back the grave deportment and stately etiquette of days gone by, nor could I if I would. But are we not running to another extreme? Is there not a lack of reverence and dignity? If we train up our youth to comic Blackstones, and teach them to extract fun out of the grandest history done in modern Europe-the history of the Anglo-Saxon race-of the race that has founded civil and religious liberty, and still nurses it in the face of a frowning continent, what can we expect? Men are what we make them. "Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined." A feeble and contemptible father is succeeded by a feeble and contemptible son. Have no grand creed of your own to make your daily path l.u.s.trous with the light of heaven. Crack your weak jest and pun at all men have reverenced. Learn from _Punch_ to t.i.tter, no matter the theme. And can you wonder that your son believes not in man's honour or woman's love-in G.o.d or the devil, but solely in the Holborn Casino and Cremorne? For instance, is not law one of the most wonderful achievements of civilisation? I do not go so far as "the judicious Hooker." I do not say with him that her seat is the throne of G.o.d, her voice the harmony of the universe, but is it not wonderful to think of the complex arrangements of which the judge seated in his robes on the bench, administering law, is the outward sign. In the first place, man must have learnt to give up a primary instinct of his nature-that of self-revenge. Then the central power in the darkest parts of the land must have become dominant. What ages must have past before law dared meddle with privilege, or before its administrators could realize the fact of the sanct.i.ty of the individual man, whether he starved in a garret or feasted in a palace. And when the judges went on circuit, with the gorgeous cavalcade of the olden time, what terror was struck into the hearts of the rustics, and how patent became to them the strength and dignity of law. Now why burlesque this? The idea is good and true, yet the burlesque is permitted and exists, aye, even to this day.

It is years since I was at a Judge and Jury Club, but I believe their character is in no degree changed. The one I speak of met in an hotel not far from Covent-garden, and was presided over by a man famous in his day for his power of _double entendre_. About nine o'clock in the evening, if you went up-stairs you would find a large room with benches capable of accommodating, I should think, a hundred, or a hundred and fifty persons. This room was generally well filled, and by their appearance the audience was one you would call respectable. The entrance fee ent.i.tled you to refreshment, and that refreshment, in the shape of intoxicating liquor, was by that time before each visitant. After waiting a few minutes, a rustle at the entrance would cause you to turn your eyes in that direction, when, heralded by a crier with a gown and a staff of office, exclaiming, "Make way for my Lord Chief Baron," that ill.u.s.trious individual would be seen wending his way to his appointed seat. The man I write of was then about thirty-five, but he appeared much older, and in his robes of office and with his judicial wig had almost a venerable appearance. Having seated himself and bowed to the bar-one of them they called the double of Brougham had been a dissenting minister (he is dead now-he died "game," they told me)-the Lord Chief Baron called for "a cigar and gla.s.s of brandy and water, and, having observed that the waiter was in the room and that he hoped gentlemen would give their orders, the proceedings of the evening commenced. A jury was selected; the prosecutor opened his case, which, to suit the depraved taste of his patrons, was invariably one of seduction or crim.

con. Witnesses were examined and cross-examined, the females being men dressed up in women's clothes, and everything was done that could be to pander to the lowest propensities of depraved humanity. I do not believe the audience could have stood this if it had not been for the drink. As it was, I believe many a youth fresh from home felt a little ashamed of himself that he should be in such company listening to such unmitigated ribaldry, but these reflections were soon drowned in the flowing bowl, and the lad, if he blushed at first, soon learned to laugh. I write of the time when the railway mania had filled London with overpaid engineers, and attorneys, and parliamentary witnesses, only too anxious to see life, as they called it, and by whom this beastly entertainment was frequented night after night. I dare not even attempt to give a faint outline of the proceedings. After the defence, came the summing up, which men about town told you was a model of wit, but in which the wit bore but a small proportion to the obscenity. The jury were complimented on their intelligent and lascivious appearance, all the filthy particulars which had been noticed were referred to Dog Latin, and poetical quotations were plentifully thrown in; and by twelve, amidst the plaudits of the audience, the affair, so far as the Judge and Jury Club was concerned, was over. Then there was supper for such as wished it, and an entertainment to follow, either in the shape of a concert or of an exhibition of _Poses Plastiques_. To these subsequent entertainments ladies were generally admitted-and perhaps the less I say about them or their proceedings the better. If I refer to them at all, it is but as an ill.u.s.tration of the drinking customs of society. These Judge and Jury Clubs after all are but an excuse for drinking. They are held at public-houses-there is drinking going on all the time the trial lasts,-nor could sober men listen unless they had the drink. I believe an attempt has been made to introduce this kind of thing to the provinces, but it has not answered. In all our provincial towns there exists a public opinion which guarantees decency to a certain extent. In the metropolis this public opinion does not exist. No one knows that I frequent Judge and Jury Clubs, and I lose no social status if I do; and some of the men who patronise them have no social status to lose. In one of the lowest beershops in the New Cut the other day I saw it announced that on Sunday night a Judge and Jury Club was held. It is too true that we are, as Tennyson says,

"Fish that love the mud, Rising to no fancy flies."

But man does not naturally revel in obscenity; the modesty of nature will stick to him for years. But the Judge and Jury Clubs make you familiar with the manners of the stews; and I solemnly believe that in Sodom and Gomorrah nothing more filthy could have been talked about, and that this side Pandemonium there is nothing more debasing or debased. If you wish to see your son thoroughly depraved, send him to a Judge and Jury Club.

In a little while he will come back to you with every n.o.ble principle blotted out, with a mind stored with pollution, and with a fitting phraseology, ready to run a mad career of debauchery and vice. Some fifteen years back the writer was at college, and one of his fellow-students was a fine young fellow, the heir to a decent fortune, and said to be connected with a n.o.ble family. The last time I was at the Judge and Jury he was employed as one of the mock counsel; but he became too intemperate even for that, and enlisted, and miserably died. They have tragic ends, many of these frequenters of Judge and Jury Clubs, and it is sad to think that, when the merriment is the loudest, and the drink is most stimulating, and the fellowship most jovial, there is burlesque even then.

THE CAVE OF HARMONY.

Reader, do you know the Cave of Harmony? If you do not, so much the better. If you are one of its _habitues_, I fear no words of mine can make you forsake it. It is said the Cave is altered since we were there-so much the better; Thackeray, I think, had something to do with that reform-and that now nothing objectionable is sung. Still, I doubt whether drinking and harmony after 12 P.M. can do much good. You and I, it may be, are old men,

"Ruin'd trunks on wither'd forks, Empty scarecrows you and I."

We have run through youth with money in our pockets and time on our hands, and have seen all that life can offer, and know, what so many do not, that pleasure's cup but sparkles near the brim. What we have done and been has been wine working on the fiery impulses of young blood, but now, sir, with our hair turning grey and our eyes growing dim, shall we not lift up a warning voice, and ask youth to pause ere it take the final plunge which for years, it may be for ever, shall estrange it from innocence, and peace, and G.o.d.

It is midnight in the great city in which we write. For a while sorrow and care are veiled from the eyes of men, and to the poorest and most toilworn come pleasant dreams. The shops have long been closed, the roar of the streets has died away, the theatres have discharged their jaded crowds, and as we walk along, meeting now and then a poor drunkard reeling home-or a policeman silently patrolling the streets-or one of the unfortunates, by turns man's victim and curse-or some of the votaries of dissipation who are awake when other men are asleep-we realize all the grandeur and poetry and magnificence of London by night, and wonder not that Savage and Johnson should have found such a fascination in the scene, and that other sons of genius have read such sermons in its eloquent stones. Let us stroll towards Covent Garden-in another hour it will be ringing with the oaths and execrations of seemingly all the market gardeners in Middles.e.x-and enter that doorway indicated by the glare of gas; come with me down these stairs, and into that room, the door of which the waiter holds obligingly open. Let us stand here while we recover from the effect of the fumes of grog and the smoke of tobacco.

You find yourself in a room holding perhaps 1200 gentlemen; look around, this is a respectable place, this Cave of Harmony, there are no poor people here. We have heavy swells, moustached, and with white kids-officers in the army-scions of n.o.ble houses-country gentlemen, and merchants, and lawyers in town on business-literary men, medical students, and old fogies, with every moral sensibility dead, who have sat here for years listening to the same songs and the same outpourings; they could tell you something, these old fogies-what changes they have seen, as one generation after another of students and rakes and men about town have thought it fast to sup every night within these walls; of course the majority in the room are clerks, and commercial gents, and fellows in Government situations, learning here the extravagance which in time will compel them to commit frauds and forgery, and eventually perhaps land them in a felon's jail. For the Cave of Harmony is not a cheap place to sup at. The chop and baked potatoes are excellent but dear, and four or five shillings is a sum soon spent if you do as every one here does,-take your pint of stout, and three or four gla.s.ses of grog; and the chances are you will meet a friend, who will persuade you to make a night of it and stroll West with him, where you will see Vice flaunting more finely and with greater bravery than in any other capital in Europe. But let us drop these considerations. We are at one end of a long room, at the other is a raised platform, on which is a piano, and in front of which some half-dozen gentlemen are seated-these are the performers. Their faces you know well enough, for they are in much repute for dinners at the London Tavern or the Freemasons, and the last time I dined with the Indigent Blind-with a High Church dignitary in the chair-we had the whole half-dozen to a.s.sist; they are good singers, I willingly confess, and sing many of them touching songs of youth, and hope, and true love, and home-but they don't sing the better for singing during the small hours and in a drinking saloon. That little Hebrew, who has been at it, he tells me, for upwards of forty years, is not an improvisatore like Theodore Hook, but he does it well enough for an audience good-natured and a little the worse for drink. The imitations of a barnyard, with its cows, and geese, and turkeys, and other live stock, by that poor, seedy, needy, smiling German, are amusing to hear once, but every one here has heard them over and over again. What they need is something richer, and more spicy, as they term it. You see they are getting tired of sentimental songs, and war songs, and madrigals, and glees. They don't want to hear-

"I know a maiden fair to see,"

or,

"Down in a flowery vale, All on a summer morning,"

or,

"In going to my lonely bed As one that would have slept."

They are careless when Podder sings "Kathleen Mavourneen," and are indifferent to the manner in which Brown renders

"Beautiful Venice, city of song."

In old times, before the obscenity of the place was done away with, towards early morning it seemed a perfect Babel. A favourite's name was sounded-it was repeated with every variety of emphasis in every corner of the room; the tables were struck with drunken fists till the tumult became a perfect storm; the master of the place raps the table with an auctioneer's hammer-"Silence, gentlemen, if you please, Mr --- will sing a comic song;" and immediately a man in a beggar's costume, and with the face of an idiot, jumps upon the stage. His appearance was a signal for a whirlwind of applause. He sang, with accompanying action, some dozen verses of doggerel, remarkable for obscenity and imbecility. You looked around, but not a blush did you see in that crowded room; not one single head was held down in shame; not one high-spirited gentleman rushed indignantly from the place. On the contrary, the singer was greeted with the most lavish expression of applause, continued so loudly and so long that again the proprietor had to announce, "Mr --- will sing another comic song." But this time the comic singer would not dress for his part, and you saw a young, good-looking, well-dressed, gentlemanly fellow voluntarily degrading himself for the pleasure of men more degraded still. You tell me the comic singer is a happy fellow, that he gets six guineas a-week, that he lives in a nice little cottage in the Hampstead-road. I know better than you; the man I write of, after having been the attraction of the Cave of Harmony for years, after having been feasted by the n.o.bility and gentry, after having led a career of pleasure on the most extravagant scale, will go down yet young as a beggar to one of our sea-port towns, and, after craving in vain a refuge from the winter's cold and a crust of bread, will die in the workhouse, and be buried in a pauper's grave. How many of the gay young fellows now around us will have a similar termination to their career! I never can pa.s.s the Cave of Harmony without thinking of the comic singer as last I saw him-in the very flush of health and life, stimulated by wine and applause, little dreaming of the workhouse in which he was so soon to beg for room to die. But this exhibition is of the past,-the place is reformed; and how it is patronized is clear, when I state that on the night of the marriage of the Princess Royal, there were consumed in it 21 dozen kidneys, 478 chops, 280 Welsh rabbits, 1500 gla.s.ses of stout, and a hogshead of pale ale.

DISCUSSION CLUBS.

It is the condition of a public-house that it must do a good business some way or other. Mr Hinton, who has just got his license for Highbury Barn, says the dining apartment fell off and he was obliged to inst.i.tute Soirees Dansantes. Sometimes the publican gets a female dressed up in a Bloomer costume; sometimes he has for his barman a giant, or a dwarf, or an Albino, or a Kaffir chief-actually as an attraction to decent people to go and drink their pot of beer. I find the following advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Morning Advertiser_:-

"The Sheep-eater of Hindostan.-To be seen, the Sheep-eater of Hindostan, representing an exhibition which took place on the 3rd of March, 1796, before Colonel Patrick Douglas and other officers of a battalion of Native Infantry, and a great concourse of the inhabitants of the military station of Futtehghur. It is engraved from a sketch, taken on the spot by a native artist, and under the inspection of Major-General Hardwicke, F.R.S. The Sheep-eater was a native of India, about thirty years of age, five feet nine inches high, slender, well formed, and rather muscular. He was attended by a very old man, whom he called his father or preceptor, termed by the natives Gooroo or Priest, who stated he had formerly followed the same practice. He was above the ordinary stature of the natives of India, and wore his hair, which was of great length, coiled into the form of a turban; and his beard was twisted like a rope, and nearly reached his feet, being five feet eight inches in length. The exhibitor began his operation by raising the sheep from the ground with his teeth. He then threw the animal on its back, and, with his teeth and hands only, separated the limbs, and stript the flesh from the bones. After mixing dust with the meat, by rubbing it on the ground, in that dirty state he swallowed what he tore off. The last part of the operation was chewing the leaves of a plant, the local name of which is Madaar (asclepias gigantea), and the milky juice, which is of a very corrosive nature, he swallowed. Having made a collection of money, and the a.s.semblage of people being much increased, he offered to eat a second sheep, and actually commenced the operation as before. It may be proper to observe, that the sheep in most parts of India are as small as the Welsh sheep of Great Britain. No. 1. represents lifting the sheep from the ground with his teeth only. 2. Having thrown the sheep on its back, he extends the limbs, preparatory to No. 3. 3. Ripping the animal open from the flank to the breast. 4. Having removed the intestines, &c, he buries his head in the body, to drink the blood collected. 5. Exhibiting his face, after this sanguinary draught. 6. Having devoured every portion of flesh from the bones, he chews the plant Madaar. 7. After changing his waist-cloth, he returns with his Gooroo, or preceptor, and offers to eat the second sheep, for the satisfaction of the increased number of spectators."