Part 1

NIGHTS IN LONDON

THOMAS BURKE

Author of "Limehouse Nights."

New York Henry Holt and Company 1918

First published in 1915 Popular Edition . 1918

CITY DUSK

The day dies in a wrath of cloud, Flecking her roofs with pallid rain, And dies its music, harsh and loud, Struck from the tiresome strings of pain.

Her highways leap to festal bloom, And swallow-swift the traffic skims O'er sudden shoals of light and gloom, Made lovelier where the distance dims.

Robed by her tiring-maid, the dusk, The town lies in a silvered bower, As, from a miserable husk, The lily robes herself with flower.

And all her tangled streets are gay, And all her rudenesses are gone; For, howso pitiless the day, The evening brings delight alone.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS: TALES OF CHINATOWN TWINKLETOES.

MY MOTHER

WHO STILL ENJOYS A NIGHT IN TOWN

NOTE

These chapters on London life deal almost exclusively with the period before war, when the citizen was permitted to live in freedom, to develop himself to his finest possibilities, and to pursue happiness as he was meant to do. Since the delights of these happy times have been taken from us, perhaps never to be restored, it is well that they should be recorded before they are forgotten. T. B.

CONTENTS

PAGE NOCTURNAL 11

AN ENTERTAINMENT NIGHT (Round the Halls) 27

A CHINESE NIGHT (Limehouse) 57

A DOMESTIC NIGHT (Clapham Common) 73

A LONELY NIGHT (Kingsland Road) 83

A MUSICAL NIGHT (The Opera, the Promenades) 95

A JEWISH NIGHT (Whitechapel) 109

A HAPPY NIGHT (Surbiton and Battersea) 119

A WORKER'S NIGHT (The Isle of Dogs) 135

A CHARITABLE NIGHT (East, West, North, South) 157

A FRENCH NIGHT (Old Compton Street) 175