Excerpt from La Vie Parisienne: A Tribute to OffenbachSoyer the famous chef, it would be a cotelette Reform - roast partridge and greengage tart. Afterwards, it was a matter of smoking and reading the papers. For a moment we may con sider that interior of Roman architecture, its arcaded court, the whiskered waiters and still more hirsute members, the solid bookshelves and chairs of solid mahogany. The frock coat was ubiquitous and a top hat hung on every hat peg in the hall. Each of these members, this was the symbol, had his chambers or his home, inviolate and unmentioned by him. But, now, having slipped into the clothes of this strange, top-hatted individual, we ask for a cab and drive home slowly through the night. Pall Mall and St. James's Street are deserted. Military tailors, Lock's the hatter, wine merchants, shops for sporting guns and for fishing tackle, line both sides of the street. It is a world of men. But there are lights at the corner, looking along Piccadilly. Down there lay the heart or lifeblood of the town. It was burning, burning, in a yellow incandescence. It had a million gas lamps and a million oil lamps.In all this immense town, the big city of theworld, there are few theatres and little gaiety. Down in that direction, the huge glass lamps ¿are outside the public houses, the prostitutes wait on the wet pavements, prostitutes in bon nets, straw bonnets that frame in the face and make it virginal. Gin and whisky are the vices of the town. But, of its squalor and immorality there is nothing left. No one is alive, now, to tell us. We have to guess at the saturnalia of the slums, at the blind drunk Saturday nights with every penny spent and nothing left for the home.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.