DOING LONDON.

West Coast Times, 30 September 1910, Page 2

DOING LONDON.

A few days ago'wo referred to the bigness of things,in the United States of , America, from the tallness of a story '

tf) the thousands reported as killed in a railway accident; If America talks big, < however, Germany would seem to de- : servo tha palm for the rapidity which it executes. The numerous personally conducted bodies of Tariff Reforming British workmen who visited Germany during the summer and diagnosed all about it “on the run” built up.something of a reputation fob themselves as lightning impressionists'. In .the. course of twelve-day tours we find that they thoroughly investigated tho scoria], industrial, economic and domestic condition of twelve great cities, and had time to spare to make quite a lot of highly, interesting statistical accuand ethnological aval physiological ' observations besides. But now they seem to have been hoaten at tliis sort of thing, need we say by the Teutons themselves, that wonderful people who are second-rating everyone else so completely in all the political speeches. The other day a party of •them, 89 strong, landed on Britain’s shores at Dover, travelled to London /and “did” that-groat city in four hours,’leaving little that is really worth seeing unseen. The Palace and Abbey of Westminster, London Tower, the National Gallery, the Wallace Collection, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Mansion House, tho Bank of England, the British Museum, and all the worldfamous .thoroughfares were achieved in record time, with the aid of electric cabs ,and even then an hour was allowed for lunch, and that reviving nap by means of which the admirable race, even in times of stress or struggle, keep themselves calm. Just to show how these strenuous men seem to have done it, it may bo mentioned tiiat they managed the Brush Museum in eleven minutes, and the National Gallery, including a long _ lingering look at the Rokeby Venus, in Severn At this point of the tour our information stops short, hut doubtless they returned to Germany to write their books, and when the 89 volumes appear on the political institutions, ecclesiastical architecture, finance, art, business life, and social conditions of the people of the world’s greatest city, there is. little worth knowing about London that Germany will not know, unless it be about Madam Tussuad’s, which seems to have been unaccountably left out of the otherwise searching investigation.