The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1894-04-24
CHEAPs1DE, LONDON N.
4 CORRESPONDENT CALLS 1T THE
WORLDS BUSIEST STREET.

oI oTcuC LCnRLn, nut EulI OF interest and
Excitement-Ono Has Not Soon London
Until Hc Has Seen Chcapsitie.
Cheapside is n street, and u busy one
tho busiest, I dare say, of tho whole
world of streets. 1t is not long; it is not
beautiful; it is not the resort of the
fashionable; it is business thorough
fare from first to last, and it has more
history crammed into its short stretch
than other great thoroughfares have in
their combined long ones. Cheapside be-
Ing not at the side of anything in the
present era, but at the heart of all things,
being in the heart of London has q very
important place i'll civic affairs 1t is
what they call can artery of traffic.
asphalted into the bargain and afford
ing ingress and exit as between the city
and the regions west. If it has quarter
OF u mile to it's length, it has as much
as 1t can legitimately claim, and even
that includes q little slice at the eastern
end called the Poultry" title which
signifies local purpose in the pictur-
esque past.
Cheapsido has at one end the Poultry,
but this need not be counted as q sepa-
rate entity. And at the Poultry end is
the Mansion House, where lives the lord
mayor in gold lace state. Cheapside
bumps into Threadneedle street, up to
the steps of the Royal Exchange and
against the walls of the Bank of Eng
land, institutions which are both useful
and ornamental. At the other end of
Cheapside there is statue of Sir Robert
Peel. But venture to say that half the
people who pass there every day do not
know whose statue it is, and of the 9TH
er half an inconsiderable fraction will
have some accurate notion rs to who Sir
Robert Peel really was, the balance be-
ing able to suggest only that he had
something to do with the police"
Cheapside is to London what lower
Broadway is to New York, between the
postoflice and Wall street Shops, shops
shops, insurance companies, great mer-
camille houses, restaurants, church.
Dick Wilmington SHAT is to say,
Bow church, where the bells still tinglo
these are the stationary ingredients of
Cheapside Omnibuses, human beings,
cabs and carriers vans are the movable
ones Cheapside is like the channel Of
tidal river-at one time of the day the
current sets i'll one direction, and at an
other time it GIBBS TO the opposite course.
The street has many funny little trib-
utaries with funny little names, Bread
street, Friday street, Honmonger lane
and Old Jewry being some of these
narrow passages where il days more
primitive than our OWL opposite neigh
bors leaned or3t Of windows and shook
hands across tie street, while from the
pavement they could scarcely have seen
the sky, 50 closely did the ovcrhanging
stories approach to the roofs thereof.
Bat there ere no dwellings i'll Cheapside
ROW, nor i'll the adjacent tributaries.
The buildings are all for business pur-
poses only. The old vogue of ovcrhang
has been long dispensed with, and
spriehily modern air is worn by the
conn rcial architecture
Oh kind Ct coi-llcodity Cheapside has
Il, i-.-o ;.5yndancc than any other place
Oh the whirling fcotstool-icwel1y It
may not be the most sumptuoua jewelIy
that ever was made, il Icy not compare
with the golden tiligrce work of Ia
marn, but it is jewelry nevertheless and
OF good sort for the moderate classes.
And there is so much of it that it over
flows the contracted emporiums and
flows i'll cascades and Niagaras of watch
chains, necklaces fantastic guards, be-
hind the plate glass windows
1t seems to be trick Of Chcapside's
shops to display all their treasures to
tho prcoccupicd eyes of those who here
march i'll legions along the pavement.
They pour their wares into their win
RI J., IN.
i've of the orient-that il 10 say. the
orient you read about, not the orient
which actually exists. The icwclry of
Cheapsidc is mainly silver jewclry, and
the radiance OF the windows is the white
radiance which furnishes with such hap
less result III the London fog.
Chcapside is best seen between 8
and 10 i'll the morning or between and
z III the afternoon, either when every
body is coming to on going from his oc-
cupatlon. But all day long the street is
crowded from end TO end, so crowded
that you cannot anywhere cross it in
safety, except at The points where CON
stables are stationed 10 regulate the traf-
fic.
One OF the odd features Of Cheapsidc
is the line Of pedestrians who stand in
either gutter, stringing along the curbs
and vending catchpcnny toys. These
merchants arc an amusing lot III their
way Their harangucs are endless and
not wholly lacking III Wit, although
their language is not altogether parlia-
mentary. They sell the most wonderful
assortment Of ingenious toys that you
can imagine, and every week or two
they produce somc new thing Variety
is the spice of their trade. The wonder