The Night Side of London by James Ewing Ritchie

If I take up the reports of our various religious societies, I find we are spending an enormous sum in sending the Gospel into foreign parts. I don't say but what this is praiseworthy -- Indians, Turks, Jews, Assyrians, bond and free, are they not all children of one common Father with ourselves? -- but let us not overlook after all the claims of home. I do not speak now of the lowest classes, of the refuse and outcasts of our towns, of the Pariahs of our civilization; I speak of the heathens in satin and broadcloth, of the vice that wears patent leather boots and the best French kid, of the intemperance that feasts at rich men's tables, and that is born of hock, and claret, and champagne.

But what has all this to do with the Haymarket? Wait awhile, and your curiosity will be satisfied. It is day-time, and we will stroll up thither. There is nothing peculiar about the place, except the unusual number of gin-palaces, hotels, French restaurants, oyster-shops, coffee-houses with the blinds drawn, as if to show they did not care to do business, and the general sleepy appearance of the waiters. There is a cab-stand seemingly inclined to shut up shop, and if it were not for the omnibuses there would be but few indications of life. On the right-hand side as you go from Pall Mall there are most respectable shops, but the wonder to me is how they manage to attract custom sufficient to enable them to pay what must be their very heavy rents. At the top of the Haymarket we find the street from Leicester-square to Piccadilly always full of traffic, and just opposite are the oyster-shops, and Turkish divans and cafes, all quiet enough now, but at the witching hour of night destined to be filled to suffocation with fast men and flash women, with cabs and carriages, with old hags with fruit and flowers, male vendors of pencils and knives, policemen and bullies, fools and rogues. Let us skip over a short interval of time, and suppose the neighbouring church bells to have chimed the midnight hour. A few steps take us to the Lowther Arcade. We take our stand with a crowd just opposite a building with an entrance lighted with gas, which we learn to be a handsome casino -- one of the handsomest in London -- devoted to dancing and drinking.