ROUND LONDON ON A HOLIDAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12991, 4 June 1904, Page 2

ROUND LONDON ON A HOLIDAY

Br. .Oosstanoe Clyde. It is the best—tho only—time to see the city' as apart from its oitizens who haveswarmed' to Hamnstead' Heath or still farther afield fov tlio Easter hoilday. In these long, silent, half-empty streets one can walk side by-side with the mighty dead without jostling : against the blank, abstracted face of tho twentieth contury. Ono may loiter in dark, sullen Bread street with Milton, or walk' through sordid, workaday Holborn with tho shade of that unhappy "marvellous boy" who here occupied the attic- ill which he was found self' murdered. Iα Fleet street one is besieged by shades of tho'knee-breech period; but naturally an amorphous, untidy figure riioves all aside with scant ceremony. " Come, let us walk down Fleet street," and Johnson leads the way, Goldsmith, not to mention Boswell, following meekly behind. It would take a volume to give every association this narrow, unbeaiitiful thoroughfare has with these three names; but one must notice tho Cheshire Cheese Tavern, where the author of "Rasselas" and the writer pf "Tho Vicar of Wakefield" met for the firsttime.. The doctor, to tho surprise of every one, was arrayed with somo degree of neatness and duo regard to tho virtues of soap and water. Hβ explained how, having heard that Goldsmith excused his own bad. dressing on the score, of the master's sartorial deficiencies, ho was determined on tin's occasion to set him, ft good example. Off Fleet street, amongst- other.small branchings, is Slioo' (Showe-ll) lane, where long ago were composed tlio two immortal lines of which no; one seems to remember* the remainder:

■ I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more, wrote the young and beautiful poet before departing for the war. However, Lucy to whom the lines were addressed loved someono else more, for • liovelace returned only to find li?r the bride of another, who neither fought nor wrote poetry, tat merely stayed at. homo and hided his clinnoo.

"A big house to lodge Christ in" was tho ideal of England's youngest and gentlest monarch when Bridewell, an old palace, was transformed into a workhomo in . 1553. Could ho- have, looked to tho- future as we to the post,- and. heard the criee, "Oh! good Sir Robert, knock," with which, when Sir. Robert Clayton was governor ot the gaol, refractory prisoners under the lash would.beseech him to bring his -hammer down on the table as a- signal fpr punishment to cease! "Ob! good Sir Bobert, knock" was the taunt whUnered in many oil Oi-priwrnor's car when suspected of having seen tho inside of Bridewell Prison in , an unofficial capacity. '.- ',

Assassinations, duels,'intrigues are in the history of- these, dark stvqet3 and alleys, ■where now is waged the sterner warfare of hard, incessant industrial strife. In the "churches, where (as Dickens expresses it) ono breathes dead citizens from the flagetones at our feet,-ono: can picture the discovered murderer and the hunted criminal flying to tho altar rails and claiming sane-,' tuary; but I better like to look on these newer institutions, such as the Peabody's Homes, and tho various refuges and asylums where that have broken'• tho liwa of competition ■ arid have fallen out of the industrial march-may claim sanctuary foo and be a* safo from the " lean wolf hunger" as their ancestors from the bloodhounds of justice.

For Demos has his ancestors as well as any lord of the manor; and Jiia ancestral seats, are they not Newgate, Clerkenwell, and every workhouse and gaol that London does not lib) to boast of| Certainly the worker has his own history in London. The recalcitrant noble wae beheaded at the Tower; but the humble sea. pirate was hung in chains at Wapping Old Stairs, and thus aohieved an equal notoriety.

South of Blackfriare Bridge one comes to the region of mean respectability; but with a background of historical associations' dealing mostly with religion both of Catholic and Puritan days. In a iiSouthwark.Surrojr chapel, for instance, one is shown the placo .where Rowland Hill, tho famous Nonconformist, dropped a Bible on someone snoring • beneath/him, with the words, "If you won't hear the TVord of, God you filial] feel it." They do not sleep in churches nowadays; , they have taken to the free libraries in-

stead, where, frankly dirty and uncompromisingly a slovon, the London workman stretches his arms over equally dirty literature and breathes audibly till tho librarian interferes. A dirty pane of glass separates 'tho mon members from tho ladies' room, whero women (aleo not too olean) nod grubby bonnets over Fashion or the lady's Field. However,' these dreary places of amusement are not open on holidays. The powers that be (and it is to be hoped won't bo long) ordain that it is better the citizens should go to the publichouse.

' Knsbury is a district that enjoys a little notoriety at" the present moment, owing to the dissemination of Mormon doctrines in its Town Hall, < which has been photographed extensively in consequence. The preacher is a descendant of Brigham Young, and his object .is to allure England's surplus womanhood to Utah, whore, in spito of observations to the contrary, polygamy still scorns to be tho fashion. However, Finsbury manhood objected, and nearly created a riot in its anti-Mormon demonstration the other, day. As one 'walks through these streets, also half-empty this Raster' Monday, one wonders if these indignant Finsburyites are . inspired by ,tho tradition that should make maiden celibacy particularly honoured in the district,, I read in a volume dealing with,old London that pinsbnry got ita name from a certain Count I'ine-s, who went to tho crusiiilcs. charging his daughters not to inwry till he voturned. The ladie-s obeyed, and, as their father never returned, remained single to the end. One became a. nun; the other, as the phrase g'oef "opened a well," to which women came from afar off to nvult. At length the King came, back • from the crusade.-?, bringing iho count's heart, lie' Having fallen in battle; but the daughters still retained their celibacy, and tlio plaoo was named after them. Coming towards the city, within eight of tho mystic grandeur ot St. Paul's, one feels added to the old associations of the building :' that quite modern interest which attached to it sinco a twentieth-century flying machine circled almost round its dome not so long ago. Another atiemot with this machine is to be made in a few weeks, it I is>_sa,id. Wheroat one's mind flies hack to the legend of Bladud, the British prince, who-is fabled to have discovered tffe healing waters of Bath. It is abo stated that he met his death through trying to fly from , Jiis palaoe roof by means of »■ pair of wings , that he himself had invented. Thus through London logeml jostles- history, and the past and the present meet at every turn.

Now is tlio tinie for Planting Spring, flowering Bulbs, r .Get' Nimmo and Blair'e catalogue, of"choice .varieties,, with price? Free on application,—Advt.,.. *

—In England tho tprm "Sunday school" has 'a doftriite moaning, and is exclusively usod to denote s place' , of religious teaohing. In Germany, however,, the vaoo for commercial eu'premaoy' lias Jed to the establishment of Sunday schools at which mechanics are given -practical instruction in their trades.' Thbr'e is; for examplp, a sohbol for masons,.at whioh the etudents, many o£. them 'mechanics' who work during tho week, spend/several'hours on Sunday morning in learning the higher" branohee of their craft. Similarly, thorp are. Sunday, schools for tailors, ironmongers, bwkbindcrs, and followers of other trade;--r.ven barbers and blacksmiths. . :

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