FASCINATING LONDON.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 24, Issue 19, 11 March 1913, Page 2

FASCINATING LONDON.

+ bond street. The magic of Bond Street is elusive. It is a blend of the shops, the pedestrians, the carriages, the motor-cars,, the taxies, and the omnibus in Chancery Lane, but that one omnibus makes Bond Street perfect. At present it is a horse omnibus, and I cling to the horse omnibus as a withering beauty clings to her last blush. There are always pretty girls in Bond Street, and just now they are prettier than ever, with their slim shoulders, and their discordantly coloured ankles.

English girls always look their best in Bond Street, but Englishmen always look better than their best. As a rule they are tall, broad-shoul-fclcred, stra : ght-backed, and sunburnt; grave, steadfast, keen-eyed, and selfpossessed, with that strange English inack of seeing nothing and nobody, and seeing everything and everybody. You might walk in Bond Street all your life and never meet an eye. But you feel that most of the men and women you encounter of a morning are personages. Indeed, you are cheated into the hallucination that you are a personage yourself. I am positive that Bond Street makes everybody in it feel imporiant. The very tradesmen are sublime. For instance, it is not possible to buy a box of matches in a Bond Street tobacco shop. “We do not sell matches, sir,” the august shopman will inform you as be strikes a match nearly a foot long and graciously permits you to light your cigarette. It is almost a misdemeanour to attempt to buy matches in Bond Street.