The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 356: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER XXXVI THE BEGGAR’S STAFF AGAIN RETURN we once more to that sink of iniquity in Horsly- down, to which we have already familiarly introduced our readers, and which was known by the sign of the Beggar’s Staff. It was about seven o’clock in the evening; and the long, low, ill-lighted room was filled with company, — such company as was wont to frequent the place, and which consisted of bad characters of both sexes, all ages, and every variety of description. The observer of human nature and the moralist would indeed have found food for earnest meditation in that apartment; for there might have been seen utter misery hardened into inveterate vice, ineffable suffering changed into complete demoralization, and all those phases of debauchery, profligacy, and loathsome wantonness which become apparent in the drunken orgies of society’s outcasts. But had the tale of each and all of those ruffian-like men and those profligate women been ascertained with a perfect accuracy of detail, it would have assuredly transpired that not one single individual was naturally depraved from the cradle, but that all had become the miserable victims of tyrannical laws, the vitiated institutions of an artificial society, the ignorance of legislators, or the downright des- potism of rich monopolists or titled plunderers. For, oh, to talk of the freedom of Englishmen and the happiness enjoyed by “ true Britons” is the most despicable farce and the most hideous mockery in the world. That freedom is a delusion, that happiness is a lie. The millions in this land are as utterly the minions of the aristocracy as Russion serfs are held at the mercy of their masters. The 322 (C(O) mG 6)(0)©) US (C(O)