Mess hall

“ Our hall was a common stews, filled with the ruck and the filth, the scum and dregs, of society--hereditary inefficients, degenerates, wrecks, lunatics, addled intelligences, epileptics, monsters, weaklings, in short, a very nightmare of humanity. Hence, fits flourished with us. These fits seemed contagious. When one man began throwing a fit, others followed his lead. I have seen seven men down with fits at the same time, making the air hideous with their cries, while as many more lunatics would be raging and gibbering up and down. ”

“ All became uproar, women ran moaning through the streets, girls locked themselves in their rooms, as if the robber were behind them, the older citizens talked and reasoned, the younger swore revenge, and the members of the town council moved with solemn steps and imposing mien toward the town hall, where the walls of the dark council chamber should become silent witnesses of all the wisdom of their puffed-up pride and self-importance. ”

“ It was in very truth her boy's sitting; for in that crowd besieging the doors, in the crowd that filled the corridors, the hall, the galleries, the whole palace, the same name was whispered everywhere, accompanied by smiles and muttered comments. A great scandal was expected, shocking revelations by the spokesman of the committee which would doubtless lead to some violent outburst on the part of the savage thus brought to bay; and people crowded thither as to a first performance or the argument of a famous cause. ”

“ On arriving at my destination, I found the station crowded with a howling mob, and the Republican town committee were frantically shouting: "General Hall, General Hall!" "Here," said I, and only by the vigorous aid of the clubs of the police was I hustled through the embattled hosts to a hack, which took me to the hall where I walked on the shoulders of a friendly uniformed club to the platform, which I finally reached with torn apparel and in a condition of almost physical and mental collapse. ”

“ I have rescued several of the prostitutes who used to regularly frequent the hall. It is not true that I and my friends have ever tried to form a barrier round the door of the hall to prevent people from going into it. It was in consequence of the manager of the hall inciting the mob to assault me that a barrier was formed round the door of the hall. I have never stopped any person going into the hall by physical force. I have never followed a person across the threshold of the hall. I have seen officials connected with the hall incite people to attack me. ”

“ Our citizens worshiping in the churches, or in peaceful repose in their own residences, little knew of the imminent peril to which they were exposed, or of the gathering of their fellow citizens in the Invincible Club Hall to arrange the details which, if successful, would bring ruin, desolation and death to thousands of our unsuspecting people. Up the entrance to the hall, cautiously crept the members of the order, peering behind them, and advancing one by one, or in groups of two or three, till they reached the hall. ”

“ But one of the Aldermen, who chanced to be present, suggested, with extra-aldermanic wit, that the Town Hall would be equally suitable, intimating at the same time that it was not considered as strictly etiquette to “abuse a man in his own house.” ”

“ At one of the ends of the hall, the one where he was, judges with a vacant look, in shabby gowns, biting their nails or shutting their eye-lids; barristers in all sorts of attitudes; soldiers with honest harsh faces; old stained wainscoting, a dirty ceiling; tables covered with baize, which was rather yellow than green; doors blackened by hands; pot-house sconces that produced more smoke than light, hanging from nails driven into the wall; upon the tables brass candlesticks,—all was obscurity, ugliness, and sadness. ”

“ The club of the First Hall-man had a way of flashing out—quick as the stroke of a tiger's claw—to the hand that dared ambitiously. The First Hall-man was a good judge of distance, and he had smashed so many hands with that club that he had become infallible. He never missed, and he usually punished the offending convict by taking his one ration away from him and sending him to his cell to make his meal off of hot water.
And at times, while all these men lay hungry in their cells, I have seen a hundred or so extra rations of bread hidden away in the cells of the hall-men. ”

“ With a soldier's wife, she merely knows that he is at the front; with us, at 8 p.m. one may be kissing one's wife in Bruges, and at 6 a.m. creeping with nerves on edge through the unknown dangers of the Dover Barrage--but I have strayed from what I meant to write about--my first command and her crew.
The quarters in this class are immensely superior to the U.C.-boats. Here I have a little cabin to myself, with a knee-hole table in it. My First Lieutenant, the Navigator and the Engineer have bunks in a room together, and then we have a small officers' mess. ”

“ Their sharp cries and frightened exclamations were summarily drowned, however, by a new pandemonium of blood-curdling shrieks and groans which proceeded from the hall. Through the half open door leading into the hall came a menacing shuffle as of countless approaching feet. It was the final touch needed to demoralize the hazers. Forgetful of the two front windows, they bolted with one accord for the door opening into the hall, as nearly as each could locate it in the dark. Had a real enemy been present the hazers would have run straight into the arms of the hostile force. ”

“ He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there.
It is always a heart-breaking thing to see these congregations of men robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome of these words. ”

“ I opened it, and peered out into the lighted hall. As I did so, a man's figure, disreputably dressed, as it seemed to me, ran stealthily out of the passage into the hall and slipped, with a furtive air and a frightened look behind, into a room on the other side. Evidently this was a real burglar. Neither the old gentleman nor Mrs. Cranley was to be seen.
Now, since I had been taken for a burglar, I was resolved at least to show my bona fides by spirited action; and so I crossed the hall, opened the door of the room which had been so carefully closed, and discovered everything in darkness. ”

“ The numbers in the neighbourhood of the palais were still more immense and vociferous; and even the crowd of guards who were keeping the court and the doors of the building seemed not a whit less infuriated than the people. At the same time persons were seen continually coming out from the Parliament, and haranguing the multitude; and those also who went in seldom failed to treat them to a taste of their eloquence ere they entered the gates; the state of insanity to which all this oratory raised the populace may easily be imagined ”

“ Gas costs money. Let what doesn't take care of itself.
We had a curious instance, at the time, of the difficulties that sometimes beset reform. Certain halls that were known to be dark were reported sufficiently lighted by the policeman of the district, and it was discovered that it was his standard that was vitiated. He himself lived in a tenement, and was used to its gloom. So an order was issued defining darkness to the sanitary police: if the sink in the hall could be made out, and the slops overflowing on the floor, and if a baby could be seen on the stairs, the hall was light ”

“ If you give Society very good dinners, Society will never be so ill-bred as to see that side-door under your laurels.
Do drive out at the hall-door;—do;—for sake of les Bienséances—that is all Society asks of you; there are some things Society feels it owes to Itself, and this is one of them.
Of course, whether you come back again or not, can be nobody's business.
Society can swear to the fact of the hall-door.
Madame Mila was attentive to the matter of the hall-door; indeed, abhorred a scandal; it always made everything uncomfortable. She was always careful of appearances. ”

“ Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely to be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert all sorts of dark edifices.
This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace of justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment, separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting.
The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer whom he met. ”

“ The barra divides the hall into two equal parts, so that when a debate of interest takes place, the public present far outnumbers the deputies, and does not fail to make its presence felt by frequently interrupting the speakers with approving hurrahs for a popular sentiment, or groans, cat-calls, hisses, and other lively expressions of disgust, for one that does not coincide with the mob’s whim of the moment. ”

“ But their efforts were in vain; nothing could stay its progress, and when the next morning's sun arose it shone on the blackened, smoking ruins of Spring Bank, and on the tearful group standing near to what had been their happy home. The furniture mostly had been saved, and was scattered about the yard just where it had been deposited. There had been some parley between the negroes as to which should be left to burn, the old secretary at the end of the upper hall, or a bureau which stood in an adjoining and otherwise empty room. ”

“ It is, however, in the disgraceful scenes enacted in the drinking-bars and saloons attached to these halls that the greatest evils exist—evils which cannot fail of exercising a fatal influence upon the frequenters of these places, of both sexes, who, in the first instance, go to hear a song, but become initiated in vice and immorality, rendered more easy and dangerous by the seductive influences by which they are surrounded. The more respectable the hall, the more prominent is this feature. These saloons are filled by men about town of all ages and conditions, with and without characters. ”

“ A large section of the audience expressed their indignation at such a slur upon the travellers by noisy shouts of dissent and cries of, 'Don't put it!' 'Withdraw!' 'Turn him out!' On the other hand, the malcontents—and it cannot be denied that they were fairly numerous—cheered for the amendment, with cries of 'Order!' 'Chair!' and 'Fair play!' A scuffle broke out in the back benches, and blows were freely exchanged among the medical students who crowded that part of the hall. It was only the moderating influence of the presence of large numbers of ladies which prevented an absolute riot. ”

“ The open hall, though lofty, is shabby and extremely dirty, with an unswept broken pavement, littered at one side with potsherds, and disfigured by a number of more or less broken black pots as well as other rubbish, making it look rather like a shed in an untidy nursery garden than an imperial judgment-hall. ”

“ The hall windows, high above the floor, cast a sickly light, shrouding the bottom range in darksome gloom. At every point, my gaze meets the irritating white of the walls, in spots yellow with damp. The long days are oppressive with silence ”

“ The hall all lumbered with luggage; the whole place smelling of matting; things awanted just when they’ve been packed up, corded, and labelled; the walls looking without their pictures as faces would do without eyes,—there is something horrid uncomfortable about a house as has been long lived in when it’s agoing to be left for good. ”

“ The hall door was burst open, and fierce men, maddened by hunger, with all their worst passions aroused, were rushing in, with torches in their hands, bent on destroying the mansion, when they were met by a party of the defenders, who resolutely kept them back. ”

“ When more placards calling for the defence of the State, were exhibited in the neighborhood of old Independence Hall, than had ever shown there, inviting the idle to amusement, in the most prosperous seasons of opera, theatre and concert-saloon—drums beating at every corner, brass bands blowing on every square, patriotic appeals and efforts to recruit on every hand, and yet the people apparently lying under bodily apathy or mental paralysis. ”

“ One after another the attractions of the square failed, and the crowd surged into the avenue, where it was fed to repletion—all free of charge. The stomach of man is singularly elemental in its cravings, and not subject to political or any other influence which fails to meet this demand.
Long before three o'clock in the afternoon the Town Hall was filled and jammed to its doors with men and women. ”

“ This made it really a labour to listen; but the extreme beauty of the chamber was of itself a reason for going again and again. It was, however, really mortifying to see this splendid hall, fitted up in so stately and sumptuous a manner, filled with men, sitting in the most unseemly attitudes, a large majority with their hats on, and nearly all, spitting to an excess that decency forbids me to describe. ”

“ The mere announcement of the meeting drew a vast and excited throng to prevent it. Men of standing in the community made themselves leaders of the mob, and occupied in advance the entrance to the hall where it was to take place. The proprietors of the hall, appalled by the evidences of furious hostility to the meeting and its purposes, refused to open it to those who had engaged it, and they went elsewhere. ”

“ We have all, indeed, undergone transformation--you from a jester to a count; I from a poor monk to a rich prior; and you, my good youth, from a stripling to a married man. Nor amongst the least is the change of this old hall. Why, not two months ago, that is when last I saw it, it was all dark and mouldy, the stone-work peeling away, the rafters rotting and inclined to fall, with nought in it but the old banners and the great chair of state. Men were afraid to tread it for fear of spectres, and the whistling wind, the bats, and the dust, were its only tenants. ”