Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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It is not possible to convey to the minds of those of our readers who never witnessed the night scenes in this locality, some twenty or five-and-twenty years ago, the appearance it presented.

Women dressed in the height of fashion, many of them being possessed of a rare order of beauty; languid swells, sporting and betting men, together with others of a still less reputable character, congregated together in one heterogeneous throng.

Anyone seeing these assemblies for the first time would naturally come to the conclusion that the metropolis was a city devoted to nothing but pleasure.

Peace was astounded—​as well he might be. He had heard of these gatherings, had seen a good deal of provincial life, but the reality far exceeded any description that had been given him.

“My word!” said he to Kempshead, “London is a place. What on earth brings all these people here?”

His companion shrugged his shoulders.

“It is always like this, every night the same, that’s all I know. It’s a promenade—​a sort of carnival; but let us go down the Haymarket.”