St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-03-20
0be CALIFORNIAN.
IN AND ABOUT LONDON.
Dear CALIFORNIAN

n Northwestern railway hotel were
spacious and comfortably furnished,
n but the lighting was one candle pow
n er, and if YOU laid down an article at
n either end of the room you were
IA obliged to take your candle and hunt
for it We requested to be called at
a m. the following morning, in
order to give us time to dress before
breakfast and take the 40 train for
n London. We were called, but the
breakfast we did not eat, at least
what we ordered-''muttOn chops"
We appeared down stairs and the
waiter had our order 90 minutes be
fore train time; his speed was some
thing remarkable. The average
boys on his way to school when
there IS fine skating on the river was
chain lightning compared to 1t. At
the last minute we bolted the bread
81 and coffee he had favored us with
and then ran from the dining room
While settling for what we had had,
he made his appearance at the office
with the smoking chops, and they
may be smoking now for aught we
know.
The country through which we
passed rescmbled one large park
broken by farm houses, villages and
hedges. The grass was green and
the fields smooth as any lawn. All
the houses and out buildings were of
brick, slate or tile roof with OCCASION
ally one matched. The bridges all
of stone or brick built to stand as
long, seemingly, as water runs. No
crossings at grades; the roads were
bordercd with hedges, and such
roads; broken stone with layer of
flint and over all, gravel, rolled hard
as asphalt, the delight of a cyclist.
a A gentleman on the train told me he
had made 100 miles on his bicycle
between sun and sun; it must have
been the truth or he would have
made the distance even hundreds, be
sides he had the honest look of a
truthful man.
We reached London at l p. m. and
were driven to the Hotel MetrOpole,
one of the finest III London, elegant
in all its appointments, the attaches,
from the man who blacks your boots
to the head man in the office, with
more gold lace than Il general in the
army. The Lord Mayor had no no
tice of our arrival, yet we were ac-
corded the liberty of the city, and
that of being knocked down and run
over by the hackway drivers at all
street and other crossings There
are some 20, 900 of them in the city
and they must be direct descendants
of Iehu, the son of Nimshi Almost
every one rides either in the hansoms
or busses. they are both cheap and
Won cannot be run over while in
them The streets themselves are
excellcnt-stonc, wood, and asphalt
pavemcnts, the latter hard as iron
and smooth enough to reflect shad
ows- All horses III passing keep to
the left this seems little strange at
first. but it commends itself to any
who sit on the right in driving The
elevatorat the hotel is called lift"
if the hotel is full, it is full up"
Wehave been about the city all the
time we had to spare, excepting
when the fog was on; then we re
manned at the hotel and wrote let
tiers. Last Friday at noon you could
not read signs across the streets.
burn lights the entire day. To me it
was BLACK friday but | was told
it was not an exceptional day. At
times it had been impossible to dis
tinguish a carriage two yards from
the sidewalk. | was sorry to hear
this, as | was revelling in what |
supposed genuine fog When you
pay full price for an article you
want to get the best there is to be
had
Feb 10th, attended service at "All
Saints" st. Margaret street, in the
morning, and Westminster Abbey at
p. m; both were full choral and
very impressive. If YOU were an at
tcntive follower at the latter place
You were not moved by the surround
ingS; but if YOU let your mind follow
vour eve to the silent statues about
YOU, YOU felt Yourself carried back to
the times and standing i'll the living
presence of the illuStriOuS dead they
commemorate. One following week
daY we were shown through the
royal chapels and spent hours about
the interior. Many of the mOnu-
ments are sadly diSfigured and broken
by destroying hands. We visited the
Tower" a most interesting place.
Thespacious rooms are filed with rep
rcsentatives of foot and mounted
men in every conceivable pattern of
armour, none of which, we were told,
but what had done service The col
lection of implements of war would
require days to see thoroughly. The
ceiling is panneIled and decorated
with innumerablc designs made en-
tirelv of the several parts of swords,
otuS ctt-a tr11Iy wonderful work