Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1866-12-20

pillars on the street, where letter can be
mailed. There are ,leven deliveries every
day, when the postm,n leaves at your house
the letters and papers addressed to it, so
that no mail matter lies in the Office any
length of time, if properly directed, and no
one has the trouble of going to the postof-
fee to inquire for his mail for it is deliver
ed at his door, and nearly every door has a
slit inserted for the delivery of letters, &c.
About four hundred of these city Offices are
Money Order and Savings Bank Offices,
which do all the business of bank on a
small scale, receiving deposits, giving drafts,
&C., which is an immense convenience for
those who wish to make any small money
transaction, and great encouragement to
the poor to economic, as the Government
itself becomes their banker. The central
Office itself is one of the curiosities of Lon.
don, and the whole postal system, which is
really banking, insurance and express or
ganization for all small sums and parcels,
are wonderful affairs. They answer admi-
rably for country of the size and popula
ton Of Great Britain. Whether they
would work we'll with us cannot say.
One of the next things that strikes one
favorably in London is its parks, which have
! been we'll called the lungs of the city. None
of them are so extensive as the Central Park
of New York, but they have the advantage
of lying in the different parts Of the city,
and thus being accessible to large part Of
the population. There are ten or twelve
of them, and the largest of them (Regent's
Park) has 40 acres, though in fact several
of them are joined together, but as in the
case of the streets, they change their names
at particular points for no apparent reason
Thus Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park,
Green Park, and st. James Park are all
connected with each other, and the whole
forms line of Park more than four miles
long. Keusington Gardens and Hyde Park
are separated by an imaginary line, which
runs through the middle of the bridge over
what they call the Serpentine, and certain
things are lawfnl on one side of the bridge
that are unlawful on the other. The Ser
pentne, as it is called, is anything but SER
pentne in its course, and is rather large
canal, slightly curved in its shape, and a
fine place for bathing and skating, which
are allowed under certain regulations. But
nothing can exceed the beauty of these
parks, and at all hours of the day their shady
grass and smooth walks are enivened by
men, women, children, nurses, &c., enjoy
ing themselves just as they think proper,
and partaking of the sights and sounds of
country in the heart of the great city
Hyde Park is the fashionable drive of Lon
don, and every day during "the season" ii.
e. before the middle of July, when every.
body, that is body, leaves town. every dag
between two and six o'clock, there may be
seen display of splendor, in equipage and
turnouts, that cannot be exceeded 10 the
world. One road is called Rotten Row,
(by one of those borrid perversions of old
French names so common here) and is al
lotted exclusively to equestrians, and pre-
sents during the season magnificent dis.
play of horses, for if there is anything that
the English pride themselves on specially,
it is the breed and training of their horses.
And it must be confessed that their horses
are trained and broken very perfectly.
But it is time that was telling you some.
thing of the more special places of interest,
and will begin with the
HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT
The old houses were burned in 1884,
and had it been any place but in England
they would gladly have embraced the op-
portunity to rebuild on more eligible site.
TO have such magnificent buildings put
down on the low banks of river like the
Thames, that flows reeking With all the
filth of the Metropolis, and is enough to
generate disease in the very halls of legisla-
tion, and where one can with difficulty OBJ
tain sight of the buildings, is an absurdity
that none but the unchauging English
would have committed The architectural
effect of the building is almost lost by its
position, but to have built anywhere but on
the old site would, in the eyes of genuine
Englishman, have been perious conoes-
sion to the spirit of the age. Hence, per-
haps, the finest Gothic building in the
world, of secular character, is squatted
! Iown nm the river hank Where dnrino a
large part of the year, the over heated legis-
lator cannot seek to cool his blood outside
without encountering an air loaded with
odors the most villainous, if not the most
poisonous, imaginable. 1t is an immense
pile of buildings, covering nearly eight
acres, and it is said that there are two
miles of passage and corridors through the
whole, and that it cost more than two mil
lions sterling. The Victoria tower, at the
southwest angle of the building, is mag.
nifcent affair. Imagine a square Gothic
tower, the sides of which are as long as the
front of one of our Richmond churches,
and nearly twice as high as the highest
steeple we have, and you can get an idea of
this splendid tower. The clock tower is
not quite so high, but you can form some
notion of the size of the dial when [ tell
you that the minute hand is sixteen feet
long and that the clock weights hang in a
shaft one hundred and sixty feet, the pend
ulum fifteen feet long and weighing six