THE LONDON CARNIVAL.
WITH the 1st of January, says a fair correspondent of the Morn- ing Post, "the Florentine season will commence : the usual carni- val gayeties are already in preparation—the toys and rattles of those whom it is sought to retain in political and moral childhood." Very humiliating reflection, no doubt ; and yet if you come to " moral " questions, it is questionable whether even we of Eng- land have much right to look down upon Florence. In one re- spect the comparison is awfully against us, and it might make some of our impatient moralists pause. Contrast our first day of carnival, " Boxing-day," with the Florentine. On the gala-day of Florence you will find the whole population in the streets ; most house-doors are open, and strangers enter ; a large proportion will be masked ; all hi gayety and unrestraint : but from one end of the town to the other it is most likely that you will not meet a single drunken man. Could the same be said of a single London parish?
We ask the question in full remembrance of the fact that the police report an unusually light number of " cases" arising from intoxication at Christmas. But we have no absolute faith in police statistics. We speak on direct information of those who have known the streets of London for years, and we assert that the drunkenness was more frequent and more widespread than it has ever been before. If there had been some improvement upon the London of Hogarth's or even of Sheridan's time, there has been a reaction. The increase of population has also contributed to augment the dead weight of vice ; and the extraordinary fine- ness of the weather enabled it to stagger abroad.
There must be a great and cogent reason for a continued. growth of the evil notwithstanding so many countervailing influ- ences. One auxiliary cause has perhaps been the unusually ex- tensive closing of shops, which turned forth vast numbers " dis- sipere in loco —and they did it with a vengeance. The result is not calculated to aid the movement for additional holidays. But we must look a little deeper ; for they have more holidays in Florence, and never work so hard. And if we talk of our North- ern climate, winter is bitterly cold in Florence.
Possibly we may find the cause if we go down one of the
narrow streets inhabited by the classes who are least wealthy and orderly ; and there a strange spectacle presents itself. Is it Christmas-day, or Boxing-day, or the first Sunday after Christmas,—there you see crowds of people, men and women, all come forth from their dull narrow homes to amuse themselves by—standing about. For hours they do it. They have nothing else to do. In some other places they might take a country walk ; from this place it is a long expedition to the mere borders of "the country." In some places amusements would be open to the listless multitude ; here the British Museum is not to be opened. At last it is discovered that standing about is "slow," and the gin palace is bright and gay.
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