The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1881-08-26
Brighton.

AHc uiSScoO lIiiuS III EIISlISIl
watering-places is Brighton, which is
sometimes called LOndOn.by.the-Sea,
and which in size and sOlidity corre-
spends with the great metropolis, and
is a worthy and appropriate ''annex"
to it. 1t is practically no farther
from Belgravia than COney Island is
from Madison Square. The fast
trains whirl down to it in q little
more than an hour, at Il cost to the
passengers of from eight shillings,
second class, to twelve shillings, first
class. n business man may leave his
office in the City ut Il late hour in the
afternoon, and have time for dinner
and Il walk OF the pier or a drive
along the Kings Road before dark.
1t is London repeated OIL Il small
scale. without the smoke and the
siums, and with Il purer atmosphere,
though with scarcely less of Il crowd.
The shops are London shops, the
actors ut the theater belong to Lon.
don companies, the faces and dresses
have become familiar on the Strand or
Piccadilly. and the Cockney dialect,
with its soft drawl and misused aspi-
rates, IS heard oftener than any other.
Like London. too, its social life is
sustained by many classes circulating
in Il general current, but never afliliat.
ing; and while in one quarter corOnets
are no rarity, and a prince leads so.
ciety, i'll another the eXcursiOnist of
4 day, or the tradesman spending a
twO-weeks' holiday, smokes his brier
or Guilty ana eats his shrimps without
feeling the disparity, and without
realizing that Brighton was not made
especially for the delectatiOn of his
own class.
But, though, practically incorpora.
ted with it, Brighton is fifty miles
away from the City, and lying be-
tween the two are undulating Eng
lish landscapes, with many shady
lanes and ancient villages, through
which the train flies when it is once
beyond the spacious limits Of Lon
don. Under the Box Hill Tunnel,
which is the scene of "a story by
Charles Reade, and has often done
service i'm fiction; over the lofty spans
of the Seven Bridges, through deep
and friable cuttings of chalk and
limestone-this is the way to Lon.
don-by.the-Sea; and as we come
nearer to it the land is hitler, the
foliage less abundant, and flOcks of
sheep are e e fattening on the nu.
tritious grasses of the breezy South
Downs. -
1t is to be remembered that, with
the exception of the ~crescents and
squares and in~tersecting streets, there
is no break in the three miles of
buildings which abut on the sea /;
the houses, shops, baths and hotels
are set together without any unoccu.
pied lots between them. But to fully
comprehend the extent of Brighton,
one should go out on the pier, and
then the place may be seen in its
complex and substantial entirety.
to it, the most crowded
watering place-COney Is
land, Atlantic City, or Long Branch
is nothing more than a camp. 1t
is vertically. and not in any fanciful-
ness OF nomenclature, a city by the
sea-a city modelled on London, and
the structural permanency of
the metropolis. 1t is not built on the
banks of Il river, nOr at the head of a
gulf. nor in the shelter of a bay. 1t
is immediately on the coast the
chalk cliffs, with their grassy sum-
mits, are at either side of it, and the
water is never more than a few yards
the esplanade. The sOlidity
md cOmpactness of the frontage of
buildings, and the heights covered
with houses, are things which must
the wonder of any n who
ices them for the first time.
brighton is not busy for a few sum-
ner months only, and then left to the
the fishermen, and the coast
guard. Though the fashionable sea.
'on does not begin until late i'm Sep
ember or early in October, the ex-
crowd il from the early
ummer until late in the year. From
August to December the climate is
most salubriOus-warm, elastic, and
An east wind keeps visitors
way in the first months of the year,
md the place is then deserted except
~ u mere handful of peOple-abOut
ne hundred and four thousand who
constitute the resident population
v. II. RIDEING, in Harper's Magazine
September.