LONDON REVISITED

Otago Witness, Issue 2811, 26 August 1908, Page 87

LO NDON REV ISITED

"APTER THIRTEEN YEARS. Bt the Rev. Feedebjck Stobbs. "~ I have seen the greatest wonder ■which the world can show to the astonished spirit. I have seen it, and am stiH astonished, — for ever will there remain fixed indelibly pea my memory the stone -forest of houses, amid which /flows the rushing stream of faces of liviaag men with all their varied pasions, and all their terrible impulses of love, -of btmgex, and of hatred,— -I mean- London. — Heinrich Heine. N • I was -born in London, -asid. lived in it for "a quarter ?f"a century, and yet cannot be said to know it. Especially is this irue of the sew London, for .daring ' my .absence in. New Zealand -changes have taken place that have completely transformed many parts of it, and are rapidly : making it the most beautiful, as.it has" long been the greatest, city in the world. Its. growth and progress - during -the last j 13 . -years have been marvellous. > Xfcs' J statistics are. .upon such a. gigantic, scale that they seem to refer to a. state rather than a. city.'. - Gieater London jiow- covers . 692 square miles. - It as the* biggest con- j glomeration of houses the wjjrld has I seen, 'a ~~ conglomeration *'of ~ 27 * boroughs and two. cities. _ At the beginning of Jast century its population did not exceed a million; it is now considerably over 7,090,p00, and adds' a million .to its population every decade. SOME .STRIKING FIGURES. The .assessable value of this huge .area is £59,000,000. The Metropolitan Water Board supGes water to 7,323,000 persons, •with a rateable value of' .£56,000,000. j The municipal area is, of course, not so j large, but even this contains 115 square miles, with . 4,600,000 inhabitants, and an assessable -value of £43,426,790. The births within this smaller area number 127,000 a year. The cost of administering so great a city is, of course, enormous.. . The London County Council alone spends £16,000,000 per annum; the Metropolitan Board, £5,000,000; the city, £1,400,000; the Guaridans of the Pojbr, £3,600,000 j — a total equal to the revenue of many important States. To the port of London, there came in 1906 27,35S 'vessels, "with ' a tonnage of 17,602,315 tons. In Greater London there are 660 miles of railway, with 590 stations. - The tramways carried some 503,000;000 -passeiigers, and two of the omnibus companies alone 291,563,048 ; ■whilst the tubes carried 153,000,000. ; In order to further illustrate the vastness of the street traffic it may be stated that in 32 hours 16,054 -vehicles -pass a particular spot in Piccadilly, ana in. a single hour. 700 tmses pass the" Bank, of England. Some -160 trams pass every hour of the day - over " Westminster ' Bridge, - ' and through -some of the railway stations a train passes every minute.- The total passenger traffic for London amounts to 1,074,505,420 passengers per annum. To quench "the thirst of its citizens there are 10,000 houses, licensed for. the sale of intoxicating liquors ; and to keep order there, are 20,000 police. Jijiout 150.,000 paupers (about 32 per 1000) "are maintained, at a cost of £1,250,000, and there are some 26/000 lunatics in the asylums. How many there are outside that be in vs not stated, but, judging from newspaper, reports, the number is not small. Over a million patients are treated in the hospitals. Fifty-six theatres and 43 music halls minister to ' London's amusement. There are nearly j 500 newspapers published. From a study of the vital statistics I find that the biriih-rate for London was in 1905 27.1 per 1000, a considerable decline, for in 1881 it was 34.7. Still, this is not as bad as Paris, where it is only 19.4 per 1000. For England and Wales it is 27.2; .in .St. Petersburg, 29.3; and in ' Copenhagen, 28.1. In all European countries there is a decrease. The proportion of illegitimate births is 37 per 1000. Considerably more females than maJes, are born. The marriage-rate has _also considerably declined- during the last 25^years, being now 17 per 1000. The dea.feli-fa.t-e .averages about '3.5 pen jOOOI , that of females -being nearly 3- per 1000 lower' than that of males, and there are .more widows, than , widowers, . which shows that men do not always • have the best of it. • HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE. There are 400,000 families, each having only one room. Is it any wonder that coarseness and immorality" abound ? \ The London County Council is doing Bonaething to remedy this state of things. Last year. -the council provided 1148 tenements -containing 3526 rooms, and also lodging-houses with 698 cubicles. Altogether * they now own 7474 tenements. Three-roonied tenements let at from 6s to 10s per week, according to locality. For "cottage dwellings (four rooms) outside London the councfl -charges 8s 6d to 10s; for five roams, 9s 6d to 13b. These rents are «tali higher than the average workman can afford to pay, but they are lower than iff paid elsewhere for the same acoommodation, and not much dearer, I think, ihan is charged for Government ; cottages in 2Hew Zealand. It would be interesting to speak of the enormous quantities" of food, fnel, etc., required by. this huge city i of t-Be thousands of ministers of the Gospel, lawyers, medical men, journalists, etc., but «pace forbids. Oae cannot help, however 'mentioning the vast number of aliens. 'Erery year aiearly 100,000 foreigners arrive. Even a century and a. half ago tha influx of undesirables (o£ course, all foreigners are not undesirables) was sufficient to excite Dr JohnBoure- wrath — LcncLem! Uio neefij- villain's general homft, TJw,oommon sewer of -Peris and of Rome. Wnia?aeager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks fix' "file dregs of ea3U corrupted State. " One wonders what he would say now. And to keep IMb vast population in order there are only 20,000 police. The morning papers publish a report of the Police Commission, which goes to show that

notwithstanding individual failures, the j police, as a whole, do their duty ' with tact, patience, and fidelity. The London policeman is indeed a marvel, as compared with his comrades in France, Germany, Italy, or Russia. He is everybody's friend; -never (or hardly ever) loses his head or temper ; is a skilful tactician ; and,, without noise or fuss« or .parade, Lravely wins , bloodless victories, regulates a vast traffic, and guards a million homes. LONDON IMPROVEMENTS. The improvements made in London since I^last walked its streets are so many j that one haTdly knows where to begin. ' One of -the -first things to attract' my notice j was ihe great improvement in locomo-, tion. The cabs are cleaner, and the cabmen; and ±he latter much more civil (fare Is tor two miles). The taxi-cabe, familiarly known as " taades," driven by •motors, and registering the distance and fare, are an immense advance in street locomotion ; handsome, comfortable vehiclegj darting -swiftly through the thoroughfares at a ,cost to. the hirer of 1& 6d per mile. They appear to be getting more I and more -jpopular, and I am told pay -j j. their owners ■ well. The omnibus •. does f n6t show as mpch improvement as the cab. I Apparently nearly half the buses are now ■ rdriven -by motors, but these are 'much ■ | quicker than,' the hor*e bus, but, urifor- j tunately, they have a trick of breaking ■dowji frequently, which renders the duration of one's journey a somewhat uncertain quantity, besides blocking other vehicles, j '•Of the tramcars, however, one can speak | with unstinted praise. . They have greatly increased in number and comfort since I left London, and are nearly all run by j electricity. They hare only just been i permitted, after years of fetation, with- | in the city boundaries, but extend outj -wards, in all directions- for considerable dis-j-tances. Near Theobald's road, the trams j enter a tunnel at the bottom of a steep incline, ran underground beneath Kingsvtax, and then emerge at the foot of | Waterloo Bridge. This subway has cost a quarter of a million of money. But what struck me most was the improve--ment in the underground railways. When I left England the atmosphere on the Metropolitan railway was thick and sulphurous, but now- the system is electrified, and* the atmosphere cool and clear. The Tubes, too, are a wonderful improvement. The carriages are exceedingly ' handsome, roomy, clean, and comfortable, brilliantly lighted, and carry scores of thousands of passengers every day. Th© fare is 2d, or, for a long journey, 3d, and the trains run every three minutes, THE NEW STEEETS. - Of the new, streets, Kingsway _ and Aldwych are the most noteworthy. Theee spacious thoroughfares were opened by the King and Queen in 1905. TKe former j /starts from Southampton row, crosses High • Hoiborn, proceeds southwards for a third j of a mile, swallowing up Little Queen street en route, and then forms a crescent -known as Aldwych, the western horn J of - which debouches into the Strand , almost opposite Waterloo Bridge, while the eastern horn enters the Strand at St. Clement's "Danes' Church. The complete thoroughfare is over three-quarters of a mile in length, with a width of 100 ft. Up to the present these improvements .hare cost the London County Council £3,295,000, the net interest of which is £126,000 a year, or £54400 a week. Threefourths of the s,ites are, unfortunately, still vacant, but as soon as these are let t.lie rents will probably pay the interest on the council's loan, and so materially relieve the pockets of the ratepaj-ens. It is 1 curious to notice that the council nets j j £66 13s 4d a jnonth from bill-posting in this thoroughfare. - In connection jsath ] these improvements, Holywell street (or i Booksellers' row), Sardinia and Vere I streets iave entirely disappeared, and Southampton row has been widened. Aldwych occupies the site of an old ' Danish settlement named Ald\vy<_h. which owed its origin to the gr^at peace cstab- j lished by King Alfied. For many years the name was preserved in Aldwych i Fields, "and the Via de Aldwych, the j latter being the old name of Drury lane. ! The only record of this that has remained I to modern times has been the narrow street known as Wych etree£— now .absortxiel "i>y +1»" improrament. St. i -Clement is Daces' Church at the eastern terminns of Aldwych is also connected , with this ancient Danish settlement, for j it is built on. the site of on earlier church ' in which the Danes worshipped. NATIONAL MEMORIALS. In front of St. ClemeDt's is the Glad- i stone Memorial designed by Thorneycroft, 1 and unveiled by Mr John Morley (now Viscount Morley) at the end of 1905. The statue of the great statesman, of bronze, shows him robed as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the groups at the ba&e ; represents brotherhood, education, aspira- ; tion, and courage, in each of which quali- , ties Gladstone was certainly permanent. j Another improvement in which colonials ; are paiticularlv interested is the National j Memorial to Queen Victoria now being i erected hi front of Buckingham Palace, i Here the Mall has been widened by 65ft, j and is flanked on either side by an alley 25ft wide with a double row of- plane ■ trees, making a splendid roadway. Glorious arches' and gateways, with a colonnaded screen, contributed by and representing the colonies, are to enclose a garden in the midst of which a statue of Queen Victoria is to stand, surmounted by a winged figure of Victory, 65ft from the ground. When completed, this will \ -constitute one of the finest views in London. SOME OF THE NEW BUILDINGS. I must not do more than briefly indicate other great changes and improvements that have recently taken place, such as the building of the Tate Gallery ,on the Thames Embankment, with its magnificent collection of {modern pictures ; the Honian Catholic Cathedral at Westminster, a vast building still incomplete ; the new Central Criminal Court on the site of Old Bailey, with its conspicuous motto over the main entrance l " Deiend the children of the poor and punish

the wrongdoer." . I can remember the time when criminals used to he hanged outside Newgate in view of multitudes of people, and see still with the mind's eye the great crowds that gathered to witness the hanging of seven pirates. Then there are changes in St. Paul's Cathedral, the old Wellington Monument being removed to the other side of the nave, and its place being occunied by the chapel, opened in the presence of the King in 1906, of the Order of St. MichaeJ and St. George. London Bridge has been widened; Christ's Hospital, better known as the Blue-coat School, has disappeared from Newgate street and migrated to the country. Marble Arch still stands, but no longer forms the gateway to Hyde Park, the railings having been put back 180 ft, leaving the arch in the middle of the road. As for the new hotels, -they are both numeroue and gorgeous, the largest being the Hotel Cecil, in which Sir Joseph Ward stayed, covering (I mean the hotel) two and three-quarter acres of ground, containing 1250 rooms, fining 700 guests in a single apartment, and having a staff of over 600 persons. The new Hotel Waldorf close by. is also a very fine structure, having,- it *ds said, the largest -^dining room in the Kingdom, "and\ is much fre«quented by Americans and colonials. Such are some of the principal changes that have taken place in London during the 13 years that I have lived in New Zealand. They have served to make it not only the greatest but the most magnificent of cities. New beauties are being added every day — parks, mansions, pictures, statues. "The charm and interest of this great city are simply inexlfausfcible. As you walk along its streets, #aze into its shop windows, contemplate its endless traffic, visit its halls and galleries and places of amusement, you feel more and more what a glorious city this is, and, however devout you may be, the prayer, the Avish, can hardly be repressed that, unlike the great cities of the its glories may endure.