A CITY OF LIGHT

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7867, 1 August 1911, Page 6

A CITY OF LIGHT

“CORONATION CROWDS.”

AMAZING SCENES IN LONDON ■ STREETS. BTEOM OWE SPECIAL COEKESPONDBNT. LONDON. June 23. Though the police precautions and newspaper 'cautions soared away hundreds of thousands who might have made London their objective this Coi-onation week, the night scenes witnessed on the provessional routes would liavo persuaded the unversed that all the world hxtd tried to crowd itself into the city ail'd tire West End. A ■ Last night there were no streets bo 'tween the bank and Hyde Parle; they were hidden and lost under the blapk throng of humanity. London has not, before or since Mafelting night, seen such multitudes of people. .In every street where there are illuminations they stood, packed together, practically motionless. It is no exaggeration to say that_ last night it took- hours for the pedestrian—all vehicular traffic was stopped about 7 p.m.—-to wriggle and weave his way from the Strand to the bank, a distance you may compass easily afoot in ordinary times in 20 minutes. And simply to cross many streets meant a tortuous and tedious six-inches-at-a-tlme quarter of an hour's progress. Thousands of people ‘ gave up the attempt to see the illuminations in Pall Mall and Piccadilly and at the Mansion House, and escaped side streets 1 and allcve. but these defections made no appreciable difference to the dignity of the •masses'of humanity. Pall Mall was packed from side, to side, in St. James street the mass was still more dense and Piccadilly itself was practically impassable. _ But the dinuax to everything and the goal of everybody seemed ’to be the spacious area between the Mansion House, the Bank of England and the Eoyal Exchange, iwhere these ancient landmarks ably assisted by the London Liverpool and Globe Assurance Company, Smith’s Bank and minor corporations made night beautiful. Those who struggled and crawled at a quarter-of-a-mil©-an-hour pace to tins sight-seers' mecca wore well rewarded. Beautiful are the illuminations in the West End they cannot compare with those in tliis city area. Every building abutting thereon is outlined and festooned myriads of coloured lights and decked. with hangings of crimson and blue and gold. -The Bank of England in itself is a sight •worth all .ones trouble to get near this, the very heart of the City of London. The squab grey black building is at night a thing of beautv. .Words cannot paint the effect of the multitude < of coloured electric bulbs, sot in a eobtmg of silver leaves* which outline its entire face and twine spirally round the classic pillars of its facade, on which great oval “o's" and “M's" in. scarlet glass shine out _ in dazzling radiance: And standing high above all are ten great electric torches which take in all the hues of the rainbow as you sec them from different angles. People murmur with admiration at the rather stereotyped though beautiful illumination of the ■ Mansion House and the great buildings adjacent, but they stand gaping at the. bank, dazed ’with admiration. It is here- tliat the density of the crowd reaches the limit. The great open space these last three nights has been packed .with’ humanity thicker even Ilian on Mafeking night. After 9 o'clock it has been a physical impossibility to force one's way from, one side to the other. One© you get into the crowd there you have to stop and any movement you make has to be in the direction of the flow of the Human stream., The writer Was last night an unwilling prisoner m the centre of the crowd for fully two hours. - ' - In tli© direotion of St. Paul s and’ along Fleet street and the Strand , the throng of humanity was less dense, but not much. Looking down Ludgaie Hill from the steps of St. Paul's the sight was truly extraordinary. As far as the eye could reach netting was to bo seen in the road but a closely packed multitude, their heads and upturned facts forming under the blaze of a. million lights a weird mosaicThe crowds throughout have been very good-humoured, and though there were exubereut parties who found joy in singing, shouting, and making strange noises upon primitive and barbarous : instruments, the crowds have been for the most part entirely orderly. The crowds continued largo till about 12.30 a.m., but at tliis hour it had been decreed’ by police regulations that all

illuminations should he extinguished, and rapidly thereafter the streets emptied of people.