COVENT GARDEN

The debauchery of Covent Garden is not what it was. Obscenity is banished from the Cave of Harmony, and better hours are kept; but there are night coffee-houses about here, dirty, shabby places, patronised by dirty, shabby people.  How weary and wayworn are the women! They have been walking the streets for hours – they have been dancing in neighbouring saloons – they have paraded their meretricious charms, and here they sit, hungry, tired, sleepy, and it is three o’clock in the morning.

Ewing Ritchie/London, 1858

More Posts

Leave a comment