TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10175, 9 June 1911, Page 1

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

TRAVEL FOR THE MILLION. LONDON AND THE LAKES. [From Ot;p. Cohrksvondent.] (" Canterbury Times.") LONDON, April 21. London is once more a city of sunshine. The call of spring is in the air. Trees are bursting into green in all the parks, and the great city has thrown off the pall of mist and cloud which overhangs it through the long, long, northern winter. Coincident with this happy change in the weather came the Easter week-end, and all over England millions of jaded city dwellers flocked to the seaside and the country-side to enjoy the unwonted luxury of fresh air and sunshine. At holiday-time you can travel far, and fast., and cheaply, when you start from London. That is one of the advantages of living in a city whose population runs into jnillions; the railways can afford to cater for the million. And if England caimc+. offer you scenery on the grand scale as; in New Zealand, at any rate she offers you splendid opportunities of seeing what there is to be seen. No doubt the Southern Lakes of New Zealand, to take one example, are grander and more impressive than, the English lakes. But how many people in Auckland, Wellington or Cliristchurch can afford the time, to say nothing of the money, which a visit to the southern lakes requires? I know that ill my six-and-twenty years in New Zealand I could never find the time to visit them, and I came across very few who did. The scenery of the Euglish lakes is on a smaller scale, but it is far more accessible. The lake district is about three hundred miles from London, but the train took me there and back for a guinea. Leaving London early on the morning of Good Friday. I was at Penrith for lunch, and after spending the week-end on the shore of the Lake Ullswater,. was back in London on the evening of Easter Monday. Ullswater is. on the whole, the most beautiful of the English lakes. The head of the lake winds in between wild and lonely hills, which rise, in bold outline to a height of two or three thousand feet. Remote and dreamlike seem the noise and bustle of London in these romantic solitudes. Silence broods upon the lake and the grassy foils above. It is a place for quiet rambles, for meditation and repose. Climbers trouble not the silences of Ullswater with their strenuous atmosphere. Their haunts are over in the "\Vastdale district, among the steep craj;s and pinnacles of Great Gable and Scawrell. There are no climbs round about Ullswater.. Even Helvellyn, the highest peak in this part of the lake district, can be reached without much effort in a two to three hours' walk. There is a glorious panorama of the lake district from the summit, which is about 3000 ft above sea-level. Another famous view is from the top of the Ivirkstone Pass, IfiOOft np, with Windermere gleaming like a. silver shield away beyond the foot of the pass, and range after range of hills fading into misty blue in the far distance. To change abruptly from these " haunts of ancient peace" to the rattle and roar of London streets is something of a jar to the nerves. Never has the metropolis seemed so noisy as it has done this week, after a day or two of .sanctuary and peace by the tranquil waters of Lake Ullswater.

EASTERTIDE AT HOME. The weather prophets are at present entirely without honour in tlio Old Country. They predicted a wet and gloomy Eastertide, and we enjoyed the most glorious weather imaginable throughout the holiday. From sunrise till sunset we basked in the sun for four days on end- surely a record for England in mid-April. 'Everybody who could do so left London for the country or the seaside, and every railway system running out of the metropolis was taxed to its utmost capacity to carry away and bring home the enormous crowds of holidaymakers. According to the railway companies' figures the exodus from "London between Thursday morning and Saturday night easily broke all previous records. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway ran 111 special trains during that period, and ninety of their ordinary trains had to be run in two or more sections. A similar state of affairs pre~ailed on other systems, and altogether the companies reaped ample reward for the facilities for cheap holiday travel they have brought into existence of recent years. Though hundreds of thousands of people shook the dust of London from their feet for the holidays—especially on Bank Holiday—there were enough left in the metropolis to prevent any appearance of emptiness, and in parts there was a decided congestion. On Hampstead Heath, for example, it was calculated that no fewer than 300,000 people were congregated on Mondav afternoon, and every common and park within the London County Council area was thronged with holi-day-makers, There was. of course, the usual crop of holiday fatalities and mishaps in town and country. The worst occurred at Whitley U;,y, in Northumberland, where three bovs playing on the rocks were swept olf by a wave and drowned in the presence of a crowd of pleasure seekers. At Saltrord, a favourite boating resort on the Avon, a couple of young lovers were swept over a weir and drowned. In North ales a lady and gentleman fell whilst mountaineering and sustained injuries that are likely' to prove fatal, and at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire, an elderly man fell from a cliff 300 ft high on to the rocks. At Sutton, in Surrey, a taxicab ran amok and injured several people, whilst at Harlesden a heavy pair-horsed van dashed into a group of holidaymakers, killing one man and maiming half a dozen other persons. In the Lake district Mr Harry Gordon Sell ridge, managing director of the now world-famous Oxford Street emporium, and his wife, mother and daughter were all seriously hurt in a motor accident brought about by a faulty brake. Another serious accident occurred at Brooklands, where 20,000 people had gathered to witness the motor-racing. Mr Wilkinson was driving a 27 h.-p. Beny car, and whilst travelling at ninety miles an hour lost control of his car, which went clean over tho embankment. So great was the momentum of the vehicle that it cleared a 40ft cutting protected by a tall iron paling, turned a double somersault and landed on tho opposite bank. Tho driver of the ear sustained severe injuries, including a fractured skull., and is not expected to live. The car itself, strange to relate, received very little damage.