Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1886-12-08
9ai19& eagle
In LONDON TOWN.
"RUHAMAH" TAKES A PEEP At
K THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

London Dwellings and Their Dingy, Stufy
Notwithstanding Through a Gilded
Lattice ct English Statesmen-Duch-
esses in the Park-Royalty.
Liverpool never holds the passenger long,
and it was just as grimy and noisy as it was
eight years ago, when l ate a last matutinal
muffin and marmalade there and sailed away
to the westward and home. One finds
changes in London, however, in that same
time, and the changes are not in all cases
agreeable. Ones old landladies, and in them
old landmarks, are swept away, and to find
comfortable quarters is now the greatest diff
ficulty Every American berateS the build
ing plan of London houses, and in search
for rooms for expected friends at this
crowded season have seen more dingy, stuffy,
shabby interiors than / could have believed
were hidden behind the walls Of city streets.
AL America seems to have rushed to Eu-
rope this year, and from every place on the
continent comes the same word that the Uni
ted States have never been so largely repre-
sented before. At Gilligs American exchange
on the Strand there is a mass meeting of COM
patriots every day and all day long, and they
stand in line before the little postohice on the
great mail days The success of this exchange
makes one wonder however the Americans
got along without it before Mr.. Gillig set up
the flags and eagle and babe his countrymen
welcome. The exchange is the general center
and meeting place of Americans, and COM
prises everything within its walls. There Isl
bank on one floor, q postoffice on another:
there are reading rooms where you find the
latest papers on file, a ladies' parlor, a tour
lists bureau, where you can buy excursion
tickets to the end of the earth, and accom-
panyinS guidebooks, and a department of
ocean service, where you arrange with every
transatlantic line
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
| bal a look at the house of commons on
Thursday, the day before it was prorogued
ma brilliant young Irish member, Thomas
.o#-: OConnOr, and one of his shamrock
o.l.. u rs were the ones to guarantee that
:r.~-Cup of Mr. Gillig'S friends had no dyna-
-. -,aoj:t them and to effect our entrance.
l:'e ~ explosion in Westminster hall no
o1a is allowed 10 enter that wing of the
i:-5as of parliament unless accompanied by
:: :,'..l!cr. and the dynamiters succeeded only
i r.i..ng some fine old stained glass win
dow, Gapriying sghtseers Of great pleas
ure. and giving the few who do gain entrance
time that they are present. Accustomed to
the broad corridors, the open galleries and the
free swing of or own Capitol and houses of
congress, the precautions and passes and
countersigns and checks needed to carry us
through seemed almost farcical.
We were separated as in Quaker meet
ing, the men of the party being marched off
and shown into one gallery, and the ladies
led up an endless lot of back stairs and into a
box about twelve feet square, whence we
peered through gilded lattice at the mighty
house of commons far below The members
sit on leather-covered benches around what
would hardly make an ordinary county court
room at home Half of them had their hats
set squarely down on their heads and over
their ears, III a good conservative style, and
the speaker, whom We could not see from our
screened gallery, was described as something
magnificent in a big wig and gown. The
speaker of the house of commons cannot leave
his seat, they say, during sessions, and has to
sit there from beginning to end. How would
our busy, restless speakers of the house of
representatives at Washington stand that,
with no chance to slip down to the rcstau-
rant, or out to n committee room, or away
during sessions!
DUCHESSES IN THE PARK.
As to the ducheSSeS IN the park, we saw
them all the other morning when there was
a meet of the Coaching club, and twenty
four in-hands went round and round the
drives. All the world was out, and it was
such bright, sunny June morning as only
blesseS tho height of the London season.
About all the visiting Americans were to be
met in the park and their comments on
British beauty and the average English
the Jelly erect women in the endless string of
open carriages. The beauties could not have
been out that day, nor any ones best gowns
Not one woman that rode by could compare,
in face or toilet, with a certain Baltimore
girl that stood by the rail and watched the
spectacle The Princess of Wales and her
daughters were there, and the carriage full
of royal highnesseS bowed graciously this
way and that i'll recognition of the uncovered
heads around them.
The princess, as well Us her daughters,
were simply dressed in black gowns, for all
the court is i'll mourning, for the mad, sad
brother of Bavaria, and dress is regulated 10y
edict and the largest dry goods stores make
the most profuse displays of black and white,
gray and purple goods. 1t Startles the
American greatly TO see the princess looking
quito as young as her three great grown
daughters. and Alexandria is far more at
tractive 10 any eyes than those three fair,
fresh-complexioncd, heavy-looking young
girls with her The three young daughters
are strangely like the youthful portraits of
Queen Victoria, and the dull, bland, heavy
looking eyes that distinguish the royal grand
mother make the family resemblance I'M
miStakab -"Ruhamah" in G,obe-Democrat