Although The Circumlocution Office website was primarily set up to highlight the life and works of Charles Dickens, we have included the works of some other contemporary authors who, like Dickens, provided some interesting journalistic writings about life in the nineteenth-century. One such is James Ewing Ritchie whose 1857 collected work The Night Side of London is reproduced on our site. The book gives a series of interesting sketches of the London metropolis at night.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

1. SEEING A MAN HANGED.
2. CATHERINE-STREET.
3. THE BAL MASQUE.
4. UP THE HAYMARKET.
5. THE CANTERBURY HALL.
6. RATCLIFFE-HIGHWAY.
7. JUDGE AND JURY CLUBS.
8. THE CAVE OF HARMONY.
9. DISCUSSION CLUBS.
10. THE CYDER CELLARS.
11. LEICESTER-SQUARE.
12. DR JOHNSON’S TAVERN.
13. THE SPORTING PUBLIC-HOUSE.
14. THE PUBLIC-HOUSE WITH A BILLIARD-ROOM.
15. THE RESPECTABLE PUBLIC-HOUSE.
16. NIGHT-HOUSES.
17. HIGHBURY BARN.
18. BOXING NIGHT.
19. THE MOGUL.
20. CALDWELL’S.
21. CREMORNE.
22. THE COSTERMONGER’S FREE-AND-EASY.
23. THE POLICE-COURT.
24. THE EAGLE TAVERN.
25. THE LUNATIC ASYLUM.

By the dim gas-light you see workmen first fix securely a stout timber—then another—and then a beam across from which hangs a chain—and now the crowd becomes denser.

Seeing A Man Hanged. James Ewing Ritchie. 1857. The Night Side of London (Chapter 1).