At the outset of the chapter immediately preceding this one I said the English had no night life.  This was a slight but a pardonable misstatement of the actual facts.  The Englishman has not so much night life as the Parisian, the Berliner, the Viennese or the Budapest; but he has more night life in his town of London than the Roman has in his town of Rome.  In Rome night life for the foreigner consists of going indoors at eventide and until bedtime figuring up how much money he has been skinned out of during the course of the day just done—­and for the native in going indoors and counting up how much money he has skinned the foreigner out of during the day aforesaid.  London has its night life, but it ends early—­in the very shank of the evening, so to speak.

This is due in a measure to the operation of the early-closing law, which, however, does not apply if you are a bona-fide traveler stopping at your own inn.  There the ancient tavern law protects you.  You may sit at ease and, if so minded, may drink and eat until daylight doth appear or doth not appear, as is generally the case in the foggy season.  There is another law, of newer origin, to prohibit the taking of children under a certain age into a public house.  On the passage of this act there at once sprang up a congenial and lucrative employment for those horrible old-women drunkards who are so distressingly numerous in the poorer quarters of the town.  Regardless of the weather one of these bedrabbled creatures stations herself just outside the door of a pub.  Along comes a mother with a thirst and a child.  Surrendering her offspring to the temporary care of the hag the mother goes within and has her refreshment at the bar.  When, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, she comes forth to reclaim the youngster she gives the other woman a ha’penny for her trouble, and eventually the other woman harvests enough ha’penny bits to buy a dram of gin for herself.  On a rainy day I have seen a draggled, Sairey-Gamp-looking female caring for as many as four damp infants under the drippy portico of an East End groggery.

It is to the cafes that the early-closing law chiefly applies.  The cafes are due to close for business within half an hour after midnight.  When the time for shutting up draws nigh the managers do not put their lingering patrons out physically.  The individual’s body is a sacred thing, personal liberty being most dear to an Englishman.  It will be made most dear to you too—­in the law courts—­if you infringe on it by violence or otherwise.  No; they have a gentler system than that, one that is free from noise, excitemnent and all mussy work.  Along toward twelve-thirty o’clock the waiters begin going about, turning out the lights.  The average London restaurant is none too brightly illuminated to start with, being a dim and dingy ill-kept place compared with the glary, shiny lobster palace that we know; so instantly you are made aware of a thickening of the prevalent gloom.