The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1895-09-21
supported by the president Even the
of the Golden Club in his an

/ supported by the president Even the
! president of the Golden Club in his an
lnual address a few days ago showed
himself entirely ignorant, Of the fact, and
! me LonfIon newspapers, without an eX-
!ception reflected his ignorance. They
spoke Of the Gorman- Wilson tariff az
ene III which the American people found
such satisfaction that a further advance
/ toward free trade might be expected at
| an early day. They New York CORES
! pondent Of the Daily News is responsible
! Cor good deal of this ignorance, as he
has the a1niable habit OF telling his Lon
don readers what he wishes were true Of
America as though 1t were actual
| TACT He thus pleases them greatly, as
| their wishes so often coincide with has
I own. But some Of them we're very in
dignan't at this kind OF news nongerlng
when I told them how cur elections had
| gone anu what the actual state OF Amer
ican opinion is. Those OF them who ere
interested in the silver question had al
ready found him out, and one OF them
| spoke Of him as "a master OF 7Aislnfor-
nation 1t surely would pay some Lon
| don daily to get q real American to
! send it q, half column day to tell what
| is going On in the United States.
The opening session Of the new P5arlia-
ment excites wonderfully little interest
among the Londoners. They seem to
! think that the big majority for the Tories
| question no longer exists, and that the
| irish will settle into acquiescence on both
SIDES Of the ocean. On one point all the
! Unionlsts arc very sensitive, viz, the
| money sent from America to support the
| Home T-llle cause. They loudly express
! their confidence that it will now stop
T,,;r md
! that they are not to ger what they were
paying for. If money had begun to cone
| when the Liberals adopted Home Rule
there might be some force in the
suggestion But the English may make
up their minds that &ley nave to deal
with Ireland beyond the seas as we'll as
with the Irish left at home. Nor has
| the election settled the Irish question,
| for, as an American abolitionist used to
tell his pro-slavery friends, nothing is
settled until it is settled right.
London is unique. 1t. is not SO much
city as a country by itself. 1t contains
over seventh of the population Of the
United Kingdom, OF more people than are
found in any OF our own States. Phila-
delphia, is The most expansive OF the
great cities CT America, containing three
times as many separate houses as New
York does. Yet Philadelphia would
make bur q section Of London, less, i'll
deed, than q fourth. Place London on
the site Of Philadelphia and it would
stretch all the way to Trenton. You may
start from Charing Cross as a centre
and go fifteen miles in any direction
without getting out Of the built UP por-
tions OF the city. IT. is no wonder that a
whole system OF steam railroads under
ground. as we'll as one of ornnibuses
and street cars thave ground, supple
mented by cheap cabs, is needle to keep
up communication between the parts Of
this huge city. No wonder, also that
the old local names Of villages and dis
sorption into the city in order to make
is, possible to, distinguish localities. No
wonder that the postofice has cut up
the city into districts distinguished by
letters to enable them to secure de-
livery of correspon dence, writes Robert
Ellis Thompson in the Irish World.
Above all the cities I have seen, not
excepting Glasgow and New York, this
is the city Of extremes. Nowhere in the
world is so much wealth. gathered as in
to the West End districts. Rome gathered
within her walls the plunder OF the an
cient world; but all the wealth she
grasped and held from the days Of Han
uibal to those Of Attila would not have
purchased half the West End OF London.
In palaces, circuses. baths and the like
Rome far surpassed London in splendor.
But in the great number OF large and
moderate fortunes London is far ahead.
This and the number Of her people are
really the greatest things you sec.
There is hardly q great public building
worthy of the wealth and civilization OF
the city The new Law Courts come the
nearest to meeting the conditions. But
most show a terrible lack OF Imagination
and Of artistic sense. They are the la
bors Of prosy architects working for a
prosy people, and finding in solldlty OF
mass poor substitute for grace Of line
and color Nor are the private houses,
as a rule anything to boast of in the
matter of beauty Turner, Ruskin, East
lake and Morris have labored in vain
with this dull-witted people. Yet there
is q beauty in the city as a whSle, which
is wanting in it's parts, a beauty OF space
and mass and line and curve, and even
Of color, which vanishes on close in
spection of the parts. In spite OF the
architects, and Of the public to whose
tastes they cater, London is not ugly,
but very much the reverse.
The buildings most talked Of are very
poor in reality. St Pauls has nothing
fine but the dome, and we must take
care to avoid seeing the wretched front
in looking at that The Abbey and most
of the Gothic churches belong to a very
debased period OF Gothic, and are not
satisfactory to any eye but a mathema-
tician's. The churches generally date
from the reigns Of William Ill. and Anne,
when the feeling for true architecture
was all but lost. They are most dreary
affairs, within and without. The Houses
Of Parliament were the work of a man
as destitute of the sense of architectural
proportion as an Apache Indian. They
suggest q row of glorifed cattle sheds,
with church steeple at either end to
show how squat and ugly they are.
Better than the buildings are the open
spaces. the parks, the squares, the play
grounds. the Thames Embankment and
the "circuses' where the streets meet
in groups Our cities, with their chess
board plans, generally overlook the need
of such spaces, New 7 ork being better
than most In this respect. In the newer
parts of London there has been the same
oversight, which the local government
is Iaboring now 20 correct by esta ablish-
ing at least Fairgrounds for the chill
dren Some 200, y am told, have been
opened alrgad u, and others are contstn
plated. So the old cemeteries have been
made into resting places and breath
ing places for the people without sacri-
ficing their character as abOde of the