GENEROUS LONDON

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 26, 30 July 1927, Page 13

GENEROUS LONDON

DELEGATES AND PRIVILEGES

(■Written by Mrs. Malcolm Eoss.)

It is usual for visitors to London to ■wail over the way that money fliesmoney often that has been saved by self-sacrifice and hard work. But, in some ways, the Great City is the cheapest place on earth. It gives so much without asking a fee. True, actual bed and board may bo expensive, but if one does not ask for gilded halls and marble staircases, French chefs and Insurious fare, one can live at moderate cost. Once you are in London and settled in, according to your own ideas of comfort and economy, a world of interest and excitement awaits you—a perpetual free feast. The streets are never-end-ing cinemas, and the shop windows enthralling—rows of girls doing their invisible mending, puppies gambolling in their straw, graceful waxen ladies in intimate garments, delicate luxuries from all parts of the world, exquisite flowers and fruit, a perfect clamour of cojour. , . . In Bond street—Mecca of the colonial pilgrim—window after window beckons and tempts—tout one can gaze and pass on. There are thrills too, as you stroll —a great scarlet coach with four pramcing horses, the jingling of harness and the bugle calls piercing the clang and clamour of the traffic,. the marvellous motor-ears, beautiful women and slim tall English girls with wild-rose colouring and frank eyes. You may even catch sight of a face known to you only in illustrated papers—Lady Astor, very alert and trim, or Lloyd George in a hurry.' Her Majesty herself may be doing a little shopping— in the homeliest fashion. You may see the King riding in the-morning suushine, if you weary of looking at shops and go to the Park. There, too, are' the delightful boys and girls riding with their solemn grooms behind; tha children, like dropped blossoms in their vivid frocks, playing on the grass; the music of the band surging through the green colonnades; and the masses of rose and red and yellow flowers that now are in full beauty. All this is free, ana you can take your book —or your stockings to darn' —ana sit ana watch the pageant of life ana Nature, with the birds to sing to you. Beyon3, very faintly, is heard the never-ending roar of London's traffic, ... May, this year, has been lavish with her flowers. Huge banks of tulips, armies of irises, hawthorn laden with rose and white blossoms, chestnuts stately with spires of crimson and ivory, made doubly beautiful by the silver water. • . All this costs nothing to enjoy. There is no need to own a Bolls-Boyce. The top of a bus is an ideal vantage-points "I guess I'm in no hurry," said an American girl to me, as our bus got blocked in Piccadilly, "this is • better than a film, and a darned sight cheaper." Her neighbour, a Canadian, just arrived from the South of France, was thrilled with the lush grass of the Park, so much fresher than the Biviera verdure, and wondered why English people sought beauty away from their own country. Now that the tops of the buses are covered, weather makes no difference to comfort. Let the millionaire roll by in his motor. He is not to be envied, for from your esftlted position, the -view is wider and more interesting. Then, for your delight, is all the pageantry—the changing guard, the marching bands, the passing of Eoyalty, the parade of., fashion in the Park. And there is no open sesame to the treasure-' houses of art —the Alladin's Caves of London—museums and galleries that would take years to examine, ana in which one picture might be worth a day's journey to see,' A.visitor to the galleries has all the joy of acquisition without the responsibility. All these delights and privileges— increasing in number every year—you can get without fee. It seems incredible. Yesterday, wliilo strolling down Regent street—*that wonderful highway, now in the hey-day of its new glory— I saw a blind beggar. Five years ago I passed him in the same place, with upturned eyes and outstretched hand, silent yet eloquent. It struck me as tho acme of. desolation to be blind in London. With eyes to see, a heart to feel, a mind to appreciate, the visitor must find the Great Babylon a place of never-ceasing enchantments. And to enjoy one need noft be rich. Live cheaply, travel cheaply, stroll at leisure through its romance and beauty, watch tho passing show, and go back to your country with a memory stocked with lovely scenes and thrilling episodes, gained with little outlay.