The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-08-16
DEAR LAND In PAIL MALL
VALUES THERE as THE RECENT
LEASE FIXES THEM.

Reasons for Making Them aigh-Pall
!, Mall in the Past-Land Valued at Five
Hundred Thousand Pounds Sterling
Per Acre.
From the London Daily Telegraph.
A small tract Of crown land in Pail Mall
was recently leased for a term of eight
years, at an annual rental of e1,525,
amounting to s shillings 6 pence per foot of
the area, which is nearly equivalent to q
selling price of e50O, 900 sterling per acre.
The plot of ground is 60x59 feet and is sit
usted nearly opposite the Travellers Club.
Looking at the immensely OF the ground
rent agreed upon and the shortness
of the time the lease or its re-
mainder has to run. Lord Lyt-
tons celebrated question, "What will he do
with itr' at once recurs to the mind. For
the renewal of the lease the crown will
naturally demand a heavy fine, aud. as
there are several clubs in Pail Mall, the
leases of which are within measurable
distacce of falling in, the various commit
tees will sooner or later be in the delicate
predicament of not knowing exactly what
terms they may be able to make with the
office of works
Unless site for the new war Office and
admiralty has been positively decided upon.
it may occur to the greatly daring mind of
some future first commissioner to extend the
facade far east and west of the present in
congruous pile of buildings used as the war
office, and absorb in one ruthless sweep of
adaptation to clerkly uses the Guards, the
University. the Carlton the Reform, and
the Travellers All those palatial ediaoes
would make capital annexes to the minis
try of war. There would be no need
to demolish them, seeing that they
are highly creditable specimens of metro
politan architecture, and the dispossessed
members would only leave TO find new
quarters on the north side Of Pail Mall.
Failing their ability to obtain shelter i'll the
locality just named or in the adjacent st.
James square, they would be tain Co mi
CRATE into King street, st. James or else to
seek roofs to cover them in some of the
small streets between King street and
Piccadilly.
The immensely of the price at which the
vacant site on the north side of Pail Mall
has been leased affords curious emample
of the growing prestige of certain thorough
fares in what may be termed exceptional
London. To find a parallel for the prodl-
gious ground rents obtained in Pail Mall.
aud to almost as great an extent in ct.
James street and Waterloo place, one must
go into the heart of the city, where anal
ogously inflated prices are eagerly paid for
the freehold or leasehold of every inch of
| available ground in q leading thoroughfare
Nor is it difficult to understand the contln-
ued keenness of this demand for space in
the city proper.
WISH TO BE NEAR THE BANKS,
Two reasons, one financial aud the other
strictly commercial, keep up the desire to
! obtain houseroom between st. Paul's church
yard and Cornhill. It is an absolute neces.
| sity to business men that they should have
their offices within easy walking distance of
the bank, the royal exchange the stock ex-
| change, the corn and coal exchanges. and
| the auction mart The second reason whv
| every inch OF land in the city is SO iuordin-
ately costly may be found in the fact that
after all it is to the shops in Iud-
| gate Hill and Cheapside Of the Poultry and
| Cornhill and Leadenhall street, that the
| great army of purchasers from foreign
parts inevitably gravitates. The trades
| men of the West End have little TO com
| plain of in the way OF patronage for
articles Of taste and luxury which they sell
TO the incessantly-avriving armies of
strangers who visit our shores every year
| but on inquiry it might possibly be found
that the city traders do the most remunera-
| tive business so far as foreign orders are
| concerned.
1t will thus cease to be a matter of aston
ishment that land in the city should sustain
| its prestige and fetch almost as much as its
owners choose to ask for it, but the amazing
| quotation of value when any ground is OBJ
talnable in Pail Mall suggests matter for no
little perplextty and cogitation. Pail Mall
| is very spacious aud handsome street: in
deed, somewhat too fervid essayist has
ventured on the assertion that the thorough
fare is lined on each side with so
many palaces that it only requires
stream of water running down
the center to be a replica of
the Grand canal at Venice. Still, Pail Mall
is not lengthy street, and as place for
the transaction of official business is not by
any means so convenient a location as
Whitehall, which, when the shops toward
Charing Cross are replaced by public build
1ngs or grand hotels, and King street is
thrown into Parliament street, will be one
Of the most magnificent streets In London.
At any rate, Pail Mall can claim without
fear of contest to be, in socially aristocratic
sense, the most interesting street in the
modern Babylon.
From the time of the Stuarts Pail Mall
has been an appurtenance of the neighbor-
Ing palaces of Whitehall and st. James.
1t was originally known as st. James
Field, and was a large open space until
after the restoration, when the present Pail
Mall, St. James square, and the adjacent
streets were built. The place where the
actual game of pail mall was played by
henry, Prince of Wales, son of James l., Is
said by that distinguished London anti
quarry, Mr.. Wheatley, TO be what is now
the south side of st. James square, and on
each side of IL was row of elm trees.
numbering altogether $40. which wore
valued at 470 ia the survey of
the crown lands in 1850. These trees
formed THE sweet shady side of Pail Mall"
Immortalized by the tuneful Capt Morris.
Before the restoration, however, there had
long been highway between st. James
and Charing Cross, with few houses at its
eastern extremity, and when the highway
was laid out as a regular thoroughfare it
enjoyed for short time the name of Cath
crime street, in honor Of the consort of the
Merry Monarch 1t was more generally
known, however, by the name Of Pail Mall
street, from the elm-shaded avenue which
ran parallel to it. At the western side, close
to Marlborough house, was row of low
rooted buildings tenanted by the chJSisters
of the Chapel Royal.
IT Is A PATRICIAN STREET.
Pail Mall may still be considered as an
intensely patrictan street, since some of the
handsomest and lordliest clubs of the West
End are to be found on each SIDE of the
thoroughfare. but and exceedingly curious
study Of London life is afforded by survey
OF the gradual disappearance of the mans
sions of the nobility and their utilization
either as puhlfc Offices or q climbs Tho