THE LONDON OF TO-DAY.

Timaru Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 1477, 16 June 1879, Page 3

THE LONDON OF TO-DAY.

(Homo paper.) That " province covered with houses," aa Mr Guizofc once called London, has grown so enormous, and so many millions of people are congregated together m the Thames Valley, and are gradually scaling the heights surrounding it, that ths old proverbial saw about ono half of the world not knowing how the other half live is daily increasing m apposite directness. Close observers of manners may analyse and dissect certain districts of the huge city, and certain phases of its daily and nightly life ; but they can no more hope to acquire a complete and exhaustive knowledge of London than to learn the whole of the " Encyclopaedia Britannica " by heart. The student of London will thus, if he be judicious, follow th<3 humble but useful lines of the '' speciaist," and " take iid" some side or another of metropolitan economy which ho can exsunino m all the aspects which it presents. No inconsiderable portion of a literary lifetime might, for example, be devoted to the history and characteristics of the coffee-houses of London. There would be an antiquarian, historical, and picturesque, as . well as a social, prosaic, and economic side to the examen. For the moment, Wills's and Button's, Jonathan's and Garraway's, Dun Saltero's and " Old Slaughter's" may be dismissed from consideration. On the other hand, the coffee-house proper — by the masses called " coffee-shops " — may be submitted to review m its latest stage of development as a " coffee-palace " and a " coffeetavern." There has recently been opened m Robert street, King's road,' Chelsea, the centre of a very crowded industrious district, a new coffee-tavern, which is m future to be known by the sign of the " Cross Keys." Lord Cadogan presided over the inaugural proceedings, and amonyst the distinguished company present was Mr Glndstone, who availed himself of the occasion to deliver, m his usual earnest and felicitous manner, a discourse pregnant with matter for reflection. The gist of the right honorable gentleman's address amounted to this — that, without holding too rigid doctrines condemnatory of those who frequented public-houses, it was undeniable that enormous social mischief, both general and individual, was the result of intemperance, and that the coffee-taverns v:eie excellent institutions for counteracting, to a certain extent, the evils of drunkenness. Mr Gladstone truly observed that there was no country m Europe m which British intemperance was not known ; but we fail altogether to agree with him m his opinion that, on the whole, the Americans are a more sober people than we are. The judgment of Mr J. B. Gough might be well worth having m this respect, and we should not be surprised to learn that m one species of intoxication — that of systematically furious and often solitary dram-drinking, and this not by any means confined to the lowest classes of society — we were distanced by the citizens of the Great Republic. They have waged war against intemperance either by total prohibitory laws or by the establishment of lager beer saloons for a sale of a mild, palatable, and ostensibly harmless beverage of German manufacture, which is certainly fermented, but on which it appears to be extremely difficult to get tipsy. In this country we have such very appfetißing but unfortunately such very strong beer of our own that imitations of the German " lager " have found scant patronage ; and, m fact, were the English people to cease from annually swallowing prodigious quantities of strong beer, not only would the Imperial Revenue bo an immediate and a heavy Bufferer, but many millionaire brewing and banking firms which have realised the " potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice " would be soon brought to the ground. We are not prepared just at present, it would seem, to acquiesce m the enactment of a Totally Prohibitory Measure, or to accept a Permissive Bill, or to import the Gothenburg System, or to endorse the proposals of Mr Chamberlain. The Lords Committee have laboriously inquired and elaborately reported, but Government has not, as yet, made the faintest promise of seeking to give legislative effect to their Lordships' recommendations. So we are left to fight the Apollyon of Drunkenness m detail, and with such weapons as we can mest easily lay hands upon. The coffee-tavern over against the gin-palace, and carrying out its operations m a spirit of no absolutely offensive or insulting rivalrj to its spirituous neighbor, would- seem to be a very fair means of encouraging temperance among the people. II may be slightly open to doubt whethei there is much practical wisdom m giving the name of "tavern" to places which are really tea, coflee, and cocoa shops, 01 m ostentatiously assuming well-knowi tavern signs. The promoters oi the " Temple Arms," the " Cross Keys," and similar establishment) may plead that there is somthing m « name ; that it is yet necessary to provid« rattles and straws for thn pleasing anc tickling of mankind ; and that the stock of appellations at their command is verj restricted. " Cofiee-palace " has been appropriated elsewhere, and the name is besides, hyperbolical ; while " coffee shop" has somewhat of a squalid look '"' cafe' " an un-English tone, and "saloon* a simply detestable sound. Let the " coffee-taverns," then, go on and prosper only we should strongly deprecate any en deavor to imitate, or rather to burlesque m these new refreshment houses the ex ternal architecture or the internal fitting! and decorations of the public house. Thi working man is not by any means the mer< baby that some of his best friends occa sionally, m their own innooenoe, aarami

a hi uto be. He knows perfectly well the ' d fference which exists between a coffee--1 house and a public-house. It is not a necvasary to dub tea " Yount; Tabby," *■ or cocoa " Brown and Stout, but 5 no Beer," or coffee " Cream of the "Valley of Mooha," to entice him from the gin-shop bar to the coffeeI ttvern table. Let these establishments be properly and sensibly conducted, let j the refreshments which they dispense be unimpeachable m quality and moderate m j price, and they will find m a very short i time ample and remunerative patronage, f There was no more sensible passage m i Mr Gladstone's speech than that m which, , while approving of the erection of mission l halls, he hoped that such halls would be • kept entirely distinct from coffee-taverns, - and that the public who patronised the f latter should not be importuned to attend ' the ministration of the former. Again, ' Mr Gladstone emphatically hit the nail on the head m saying that the coffee- . taverns should be so managed as to yield | a liberal per centage on the outlay. Tho time has passed, he asserted, when it had , become necessary or even befitting to supt plement the needs of the average artisan jby eleemosynary means. " If," tho eloquent speaker concluded, " coffeetaverns were put forward as charitable t institutions, the working classes would • not enter them." Art, it is gratifying to observe, is beginning to exercise an influence as direct as it is beneficent m almost every department of our social life ; and we shall not, perhaps, bo deemed over-sanguine m expressing the hope that, as art-education : m England progresses, the graphic, the ( plastic, and the chromatic elements m art will be brought to bear on making , coffee-taverns and similar places of public resort not only harmless, but cheerful and attractive. It would be idle to expect • that every youth of the working class who has " a turn for drawing," and so enrols himself as v student at a local school of art, will become a Millais or a Leighton. , But a general spread of art-training conduces to 3 general taste for comeliness and 1 eleyance m public embellishments, and m 1 the fashions and hue of the most ordi- ! nary domestic appliances. The Greeks, > who began by worshipping the most hideous stocks and stones, ended by pro- : duciii!? nothing that was absolutely ugly ; yet their innumerable aculptors, paint- ' era, and decorators were obviously not all of the calibre of Praxiteles . or Apelles. Legions of them were m all probability very obscure artisans, who ■ worked for tie humblest wages. The ■ Spirit of Beauty, however, had impregn ated the whole life of the people, and ' the result was the universal condemnation of the ugly, the mean, and the false. 1 It is not, then, a descent from tho sublime ' to the ridiculous to point out how, m such art-loving capitals as Paris, Vienna, and ' Milan, the artistic decorator has been called m to give cheap but enlivening and refining grace and brilliancy to objects which m thia country are abandoned to dingy squalor, or are made repulsive to the educated eye by tasteless tawdriness. Public-house decoration is, per--1 haps, past praying for, and the Bonifaces must be left to their own devices m the way of sham rosewood and sham composite columns, plate-",lass, and ginhogahe.ds, with gilt hoops and " fancy" taps. The coffee-taverns, which, it is to 1 be hoped and expected, will multiply • by the hundred m our midst, should ' present an ample and most favorable ' field for the employment of inexpen- | sive but thoroughly artistic decoration. The practice of smearing the fagades of 1 these establishments a staring red, as ' though they were so many colossal pillar 1 letter-boxes or dismasted light-ships run 1 aground, should be dispensed with as soon ; as convenient. Enamelled and decorated tiles make excellent house frontages. They beautify Lisbon, and there is no valid reason why they should not beautify 1 London. They can be manufactured at a very small expense, and they are as indestructible as bricks, while - every shower ' of rain would cleanse them from the London giiino ere the dirt had time to ' form an incrustation. As cheaply, as ; effectively, nnd as elegantly might the ' plastered walls nnd ceilings of our coffeetaverns to come be artistically decorated ; and every step made m this direction ' would tend to cheer, to elevate, and to '. refine the life of the working man. As ; things stand, he has little choice between the dinginess and dulness of his home and the garish splendor of the brawling ' tavern.