The Freedom of the Street.

Evening Post, Volume LXX, Issue 79, 30 September 1905, Page 10

The Freedom of the Street.

Those of us who are fortunate enough to live lives intimate with trees, hedgerows, and green country lanes, and know what it is to linger among the sweet scents of spring, or '"mid the acres of tho rye," in autumn, or to feel the charm of . the "bare ruined choirs" of winter, when the country is more especially one's own, for it tells "the secret of its power then only to the elect — those of us, I say, who possess these delights may wonder at the fascination of the street. The joys of all the seasons in turn have tp be discovered there. The street is church, theatre, society, nageant, amusement, dreamland, education; an open book wherein all who will may read. Dr. Johnson uuderstqod all this,, but then he did not understand the country, and when he told of his joy in Fleet-street, and compared it with a cow in a green field, the green field was just a green field to, him and nothing more. To the vast mass of Londoners the street is a necessity of existence, for the Londoner can hardly be said to have a home. The small room which a family uses as a sitting-room, occupied by three or four adults and as many children, has about as much of comfort as the wor&t kind of- station waiting-room, with less space and not so good a fire. The street provides fresh air, freedom, light, liberty to move, with an "entertainment" always on hamd. Real life in the street begins about eight o'clock in the evening, when the rich have rolled oh, or are rolling, to their dinners in different quarters of the town.} then the hatches are pushed up, and like the ghosts of the wicked nuns in the opera, who appear from 'their graves shedding their dim robes and revealing themselves in gorgeous attire, so from every area gate emerge gay and festive damsels, young and old, all clad in their best for the evening's amusement. When you have friends on every cabrank and amongst omnibus drivers and conductors, you naturally hear the news of the road; every one is an acquaintance, nay, a possible friend, and if you want information on any subject you, do. not go to any book or printed sheet ; you find it in tho street. A poor mother who was in great grief about her young daughter, oil whom she had lo6i sight for ten days, told me that sho felt sure she should find her in Hampstead. So ilir os I could tell, she had no sort of clue, just an instinct 1 ; and it seemed a very wildgooso chase. She started for Hamratead, however, and had not gone far before, at tho railway aich there, sho met an old apple-woman at her stall, and to her she appealed for news of her daughter. "Ha'ye you seen my daughter?" "I don't lcnow your daughter," said the apple-woman, "bnfc I See a likely sort o' young girl with a Salvation Army lass." "That'll ,be sho," said the mother; and so it was. I had an engagement which took me out one or two evenings in the week and kept me engaged till about eleven p.m. Ono night, as I was hurrying along to catch a train, a true London mizzle falling and making the pavements gronsy and most unsafe, especially in the side-streets, whore kitchen orts ore apt to be -thrown down. I tripped up and fell. Before I could recovei from the shock, I felt myself seized by strong arms and lifted to my feet. When I had shaken myseli) I found my rescuer carefully feeling my elbows and wrists to see if I had broken a bone. ' "You're all right, mann," eaid he ; "they're always falling down .just here., There's no bones broke." Ho spoke as if broken bones were a common occurrence in that plare. He evideivtly had picked up rnauy poor wayfarers, and it seemed to me as if he we're quite prepared to set their bones for 'them if necessary 1 . . * My greatest temptation was a potatostall. You could sec the glowing, redhot charcoal and the potatoes grilling on their iron trays. Never, surely, were there such huge potatoes ! There they were in their jackets, done to a turn, steaming hot,' with salt to match. Tho weather was very cold, and I resisted for many .evenings, .foreseeing some of the difficulties that would hive to be met ; but one very bitter night I succumbed, and, greedily choosing tho biggest potato, I paid my money and prepared to walk off with it. But it was so large, and so very hot ! I would nsk any reader if he had ever bought n hot potato in the street and carried it off honestly with him and eaten it then and Micro 7 Happily I had a muffi into which I btuffed one end. Tvothmg would be easier, I thought, then to cut off the other end and cat the potato as one eats nn apple. I had a pocket-knife, but it was cold, and the kiiiflj was difficult to open, and I had gl6ves. I stopped in a comfortable mrner, as J thought, a little sheltered from the cutting wind, and commenem i.nei\>tiftns: But I had no luck : first I dropped mv salt, niy precious salt, then my gloves; a little street-urchin creeps near and took up n comfort-able position on a neighbouring doorstep whence he could watch me; an organ-grinder going home wityi a wretched shivering monkey also took a stand to get a good view of my proceedings; and, finally, a policeman looked at mo with a very unfriendly and suspicious eye. That decided me; I gavo up my potato in despair, and cramming it inside my muff, I marched on, feelnipr defeated and humiliated. I realised tho limitations of tho well-to-do and how incapable they wcro of conducting any operations in tho street. Atos! I- had not Rone far before I snw the; figure of nn old woman huddled up tinder an archway, evidently preparing to sleep there. I feared -she might be frozen that cruel night, and stopped to put money in her hand for n night's lodging, when suddc-nlv I remembered mv potato. "Good mother,".«aid I diffidently, ' I have a hot potato here ; would you like to haw it!" She eagerly clutched at,it, more pleased with it, I thought than with Hie money I had given her. I could not help noticing the deft wny in which she proceeded to peel and eat 'it. The rich hnve not the "Freedom of the Street, nor the pilcly and light-hcorted-ness which it confl'rs upon the brotherhood. Perhnps it is well that they should rocognisa their limit.itioi's nml try to understand all that tho Street means to those who cannot be sftid to have a home.— Mrs. Frederic Harrison, in the Westminster Gar.ettc.

"Cold," said the Christian Scientist, buttoning his warm fur-linod coat, "is merely the absence of heat." "Thankee," said tho shivering beggar, "but it ain't the kind'Sf absence that makes the heart grow fonder."