/iDajor Mbste*/!Delv>me 4.13 



knowledge both of town and country life, and his pic- 

 tures of both are as faithful as they arc graphic. As 

 one reads now his description of the amusements of a 

 man-about-town in the forties, one is struck with the 

 atmosphere of sordidness and squalor which surrounded 

 the sports (save the mark !) of the racketty ' Upper Ten ' 

 in those days. A sparring match at Jem Burn's, a 

 ratting match at Billy Shaw's ! What a tap-room odour 

 there is about them ! How dirty and disreputable were 

 the places they frequented, and the people with whom 

 they consorted, these ' swells,' in pursuit of the recrea- 

 tions of the ' Fancy ! ' And yet I will not be priggish 

 enough to deny that there was a fascination about these 

 unconventional pastimes ; for I, too, have ' heard the 

 chimes at midnight,' and have shaken the grimy paws of 

 bruisers and dog fanciers in low-browed tavern parlours, 

 and sat cheek-by -jowl with Bohemian blackguards of all 

 sorts and imagined that I was seeing life ' and enjoying 

 it. But who will deny that the National Sporting 

 Club is an improvement upon Jem Burn's sparring 

 saloon and Billy Shaw's rat-pit ? The racy humours of 

 the old ' sporting crib,' with its varied assortment of 

 humanity in the rough, may be lacking, but at least the 

 surroundings are cleanlier, brighter, more comfortable, 

 less revolting to a gentleman's sense of self-respect. 

 The sports of a man about town are no longer re- 

 dolent of blackguardism. Whyte-Melville, with all his 

 refined taste and sensitive gentlemanly instincts, sounded 

 the whole gamut of ' Life in London,' and summed up 

 his experiences in the pithy exclamation, ' What damned 

 fools men are ! ' 



What a relief it must have been to him to get away 

 from that fetid atmosphere into the pure, healthy air of 



