f 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 class 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 surpasses 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 multitude
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 ashore, resides here, and Jack ashore is the
weakest and simplest of men. As an illustration 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 C