LONDON’S NIGHT LIFE.

Shannon News, 17 April 1923, Page 4

LONDON’S NIGHT LIFE.

THE DANCING CLUBS.

j.;AST END A ■' CANCER SPOT.”

COMPARISON WITH NEW YORK

” I was shocked and astonished to see public men of high reputation dancing with girls in a London night Mrs. Mina van Winkle, the Washington police chief,' who is now m London, is very much awake even in th ' small hours. One evening she visited some of London’s night haunts and when she rose the next morning she gave the above verdict. '• i went to a certain night club,’ she said, "at midnight and stayed th:re until half-past two. I could have stayed till breakfast time, I understand a thing that we could not do in America. “ Rut I opened my eyes when I ] canicd the identity of some of the male visitors. I would not have known who they were, but a young Jewess came up to me and said, ‘You are. from New York ? ’ In conversation she pointed out some middle-aged and elderly men who were dancing with nice-looking though not necessarily nice girls. “ They wore men of high reputation : n the real sense. Ido not know whether our public men in America are better than yours, or simply more hypocritical, but they certainly would not be seen at the night club I visited. They may, of course, go elsewhere but the point is that they look better aßer their reputations.

“Apart from that, there was nothing that could excite any particulai comment in the night club. “We were told that we must become members, but we were able to get membership cards immediately on payment of 15/-. In Piccadilly Circus,

“ Piccadilly Circus gave me food for thought. I stood for one and a-half hours there, and was amazed to see so many girls on the streets for no other purpose than to accost men, and who in about a hundred cases that I saw did accost them. That could not happen in New York. A girl may occasonally be seen on the streets, but you would need to look for her with a fine-tooth comb. In Piccadilly the uniformed police told me that they were quite powerless to do anything They must first hear some conversation before they can make an arrest, and this is, of course, Impossible in uniform.

“ Obviously, in my short visit I am not in a position to make a comparison between the morals of London and New York, blit after a-visit to the East End one night I can say that New York has less to be ashamed of in its slums.

“ The Bowery is bad, and I ought to know for I have slept in every woman’s lodging house in New York, but your East End is worse. It is one of !h - cancer spots of the world. There are lots of dirt in the Bowery,- but not the same degree of grinding poverty. Th > people of the East End arc not innately worse than the American ooor, but there seems to be more 'banc of their becoming cr'initial.” The Police Courts.

Mrs. van Winkle visited some, of bo pol co courts in London and the Ud Bai.oy. Her impressions are of ’lie rest

“What si nick me,’ she said, “ was the dignity of the proceedings at a place like Bow Rtivct. In America, where the police courts are about th". worst on earth, our public seats are fill! wiih tiie dope find wlrsky ranter :. illicit agents, and ail kinds of criminals, who simply come to spy on lie police force. “ In Bow Strut there was far more irivaey, A young man and woman brought, up liter ■ for their first offence nd not a crowd of crooks and negoes gaz ng at them in the dock, as ve have.

" But I think that in both eoun--1 rics there is room for improvement in the treatment of criminals. “ I am convinced that the secret of dealing with crime is not fear of the law but in getting hold of the criminal when he commits his first act. Hr,'ll, if you cannot deal with him, he *s a mental case. We are filling up our gaols with a lot of people who ■-imply come out to repeat the offence wer and over again. I have scn one woman appearing for the same of.ence G 3 times.

“ Obviously the pr’son is doing no ;ood. The method is not only ineffii ’tit, but very expensive.”