DOINGS IN LONDON.
UNDER this title we find registered in a volume, the proceedings of the lowest and most contemptible persons in the metropolis.
The claim to notice, in works of this sort, is the singularity or the
extremity of your vice : to be a blackguard, entitles an individual to be considered a doer; to be amenable in a court of justice, is a
situation worthy of honourable mention ; to be a beggar, is some thing, but to be a dissolute, hypocritical, and extremely wicked beggar, raises the person so characterized to historical importance —anecdotes of his manners, and descriptions of his peculiarities, then become valuable subjects of record. Every town has its vices and its abandoned characters: the larger its population and the more extensive its ramifications, the more abundant is its iniquity ; the opportunities of concealment, and the occasions of depredation and imposition, naturally encourage the growth of those appetites. that shun the light. The question is, whether minute descriptions of these vices and their professors are fit subjects of . publication. The newspapers, daily and weekly, may be generally said to live upon the materials furnished from the base corners of the metropolis, in the purlieus uf which no respectable person
would like to be ever seen. .cit.fer the newspapers, come the " Tom and Jerry " books, the " Mornings in Bow-street," the
" Doings in London ;" which in their turn dish up again the ma terials first supplied by the periodical press. The question of the propriety of publishing these details is generally begged: writers who have broached the subject declaim in generals, and, without
discussing it in a way to convince, run on with such remarks as these : " a system of filth," it is called in a contemporary of last week, " which must eradicate every idea of innocency from the face
of the country, and plant in its stead an acquaintance with all that is vile and detestable in human nature." " Day after day," it is added, " is the deluge poured forth ; and the perpetual wearing of , the stream must produce effects to be deprecated, not only from the actual guilt of which they are the origin, but from their wide
spreading debasement of character where purity is most to be coveted." This is certainly not a strain calculated to produce any effect upon either public or press. On the latter, indeed, we fear there is no expectation of producing an effect by argument. It is venal: it will print that which will sell. But were the more respectable portion of the public persuaded that the practice of reading details of vice and crime were calculated to taint the members of their families, they would, doubtless, cease to patronize those journals in which they appear ; others, with other objects and conducted in another manner, would rise up ; and the press, seeing its interest to lie on the side of decency, would quickly proceed on a different tack. We are, however, so habitually friends of publicity, and so unwilling to believe that it is ever attended with injury to society, that it would not be without much further deliberation that we should consent to condemn the iniquities and abominations of the more irregular members of it to congenial darkness. It is an axiom both in morals and chemistry, that the presence of light puifies : we know that noxious animals shun it as hateful. It is not, however, merely light which the periodical press lets in upon vice : it disposes both the light and the shade in such a manner as to conceal the most disgusting deformities, and to throw out the rest in such bold relief as to give it the effect of a picture, where the artist has designedly and artfully selected the most favourable point of view under the most advantageous disposition of light. There can be but one opinion as to the injurious consequences of thus gilding, vice : it is the trick of the tempter. SCHILLER'S "Robbers" is said to have induced many young men, by the romantic colouring it gave to highway-robbery, to take to the road. The "Tom and Jerry" farce, and its original the book, though a very clumsy and coarse piece of manufacture, led many a brainless young man into "thumping Charlies," and similar vicious and stupid pastime. It is quite a different and far more serious question, to ascertain whether a simple and honest narrative of the impositions of swindlers—of the facts and circumstances of crime, as they appear in reports of trials and proceedings of police, in cases before the
sheriff for the assessment of damages for adultery, likely to corrupt the mind of the reader ; that is to say, whether the mere narrative is calculated to produce a tendency to do similar actions, or to look upon them when done by others with greater indifference. If vice is truly represented, the inseparable consequence of it is manifestly misery. To be forewarned, is said to be forearmed. Is not a young person more likely to fall into snares when she is ignorant altogether of the existence of such deceits, than when she is aware of their nature, of the consequences of capture, and of the character and description of those who spread the nets ? Vice is ugly, not beautiful; and they who see it and know it for what it is, will be the first to shun it. We know that there is in this country a taste for that innocence which is the result of ignorance: it is possible that its bloom may be more lovely and captivating than that which arises from a wary knowledge of consequences : at the same time, we may remark that the taste is extravagant—that, for the gratification of this kind of epicureanism in morals, thousands fall a sacrifice for the sake of the one specimen of primeval purity. For our parts, we would esteem that whiteness of soul where no tarnish remains, not because no breath had ever breathed upon it, but because the superiority of its principles and the character of its education permitted no stain to endure for a moment.
The Doings in London may be amusing to the bulk of readers : it is full of anecdotes of beggars, rogues, and impostors ; there is a tiny attempt at liveliness in the composition ; and a still feebler attempt at moralizing the passing scene, by the aid of a running dialogue between Mentor and Peregrine. The latter, a young man, under the auspices of his aged friend, reclaims a woman of the town called Julia Desmond; and the niceness of the tone of moral feeling may be ascertained by the fact that Peregrine falls in love with Julia !—whether the pure flame brightens into a legitimate connexion, we really have not taken the pains to find out.
A book which should really describe the ways of life in London, we cannot help thinking would be a valuable performance ; but it must be something very different from this. It is proverbially said that one half the world does not know how the other half lives : now in our "Doings in London," we would show up one half to the other : we would divide the population into all its different classes; we would estimate their incomes and their means of existence, their pains and their pleasures, calculate the fluctuations of their existence, appreciate the tone of their morality, and the amount of their intelligence and their information. All this might be done by the aid of an analytical inquiry, which would be full of interest, and abound in details far more curious than any before us, of the struggles of honest industry and ingenious knavery, of splendid poverty, and the strange eventful occurrences of social life in all its branches.
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