The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1900-09-07
''W. c." In London Town.
LONDON, ENGLAND. July II, 1900

ANO-NOONs IINGlAANDs july 1 &, lOOU.
The English have peculiar ways Of
doing and saying things. In directing
a person to museum, theatre or hotel.
policemen never use the words block
or corner, but tell you to go the first
turning, " then to the second turning, "
etc. The drivers all keep to the left
instead of the right as in America, and
the cabbies find pleasure in almost run
ming over you. If passenger doesn't
have the correct change for his fare
the cabby just keeps all the money you
/ give him. At the hotels there Fare
no elevators, but the Gift will take
you up very slowly-when the boy can
/ be awakened. In the dining room the
walters will stand around like wooden
men and let you find your own seat at
the table, only to tell you that the seat
you chose is engaged" You also zen
gage" tickets for the theatre, and get
ticket the size of postal card, with the
date and seat number written with ink.
A girl usher shows you to your seat and
sells you program for a sixpence-
twelve cents in American money. Be
tween acts the ushers sell candy and
brick ice-cream, the latter served on
plates-even in Sir Henry Irving's own
! theatre. The coclmey slang in
England is almost as hard to under
stand as French or German, so
fast do they rattle it off to you.
A tradesman will price you something
at neutrality-suspicious." and if it
is your first day in London you don't
know any more than before he told you.
The price he gave you, however, was
one shilling (twenty-four cents, two
pence -four cents), half-penny lone
cent? Londoners still cling to their
old-time omnibusses, but some day
after Paris, France, and Paris, KY,
have had street cars for fifty years. the
largest city in the world will discard
the bus for the electric car.
Nv
AS the stranger enters London from
Waterloo Bridge, the world-famous
Westminster Abbey is seen in the dis
lance. What a world of royalty, of
generals, statesmen, poets, bishops and
novelists sleep within its gray walls !
The original Abbey was built by Edward
the Confessor, a thousand years ago,
and the present Westminster Abbey was
built seven hundred years ago by Henry
III and Edwary 1, and Henry VII adj
ded splendid chapel to it in the six
tenth century. In these chapels are
buried most Of the kings and queens of
England from the time Of Edward the
COnfessOr. Unconsciously feeling of
reverence and awe comes over one as he
is surrounded by the tombs of Sovereigns,
each lying above ground in their tene-
ments of marble, while under foot is the
dust of statesmen, heroes, poets and
martyrs. The doors of these chapels
are guarded always, and only a few Wis
itors are admitted at time, each pay
ing SlXpence to the attendant fWhO
points out the noted tombs. Even the
tombs of kings have suffered from the
souvenir fiend, as fingers and toes and
other carvings are missing from some
of the tombs. Westminster Abbey has
for centuries been the scene of corona
tons and royal marriages and funerals.
.
The chair used in every coronation since
Edward 1, in the twelfth century, is
one of the sacred objects in the chapel
Of the Confessor. The church is 513
feet long, rs feet wide, and the tran
septs are 200feet long. The vaulting of
the nave is 102 feet in height, and the
arches are rich in carving and mould
ing. The tomb of Gladstone lies in
the center of one of the aisles of the
nave, and in the ''Poet's Corner" are
the tOmbs of Chaucer, Cowley, Spencer,
Tennyson, Browning, Jonson, Milton,
Gray, and memorials of Shakespeare,
Burns and others. A fine bust of Long