Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1900-07-13
IN MIGHTY LONDON.
NO OTHER CITY IN THE WORLD
COMPARES.
How the Great Metropolis Went Mad
Over the Good News from Africa
A Marvellous Observation-Disclosures OF
England for Us.

This is my third visit here. writes
an American in Londcn. Successive
visits serve to make the colossal city
look bigger, livelier and more danger
Gus than before. When you have
walked and been driven through its
principal streets. some wide. some
narrow and some occasionally tortuous
for days, the magnitude of the great
est collection of human beings on the
face Of the earth begins slowly to TN
fold itself. In her palmiest days i'm
periai Rome had 100000 jewellers;
here in London. with three times as
many and 35,000,O0O more people with
in few hours ride by rapid transit.
After you have seen the principal ar
teries of the throbbing life of Briton's
metropolis you are ready to accept any
statement as to its population, be 1t
six, eight, ten, twelve or twenty mil
lion. From early morning. till far in
to the night the endless procession fills
the streets-takes possession of road
way and sidewalk till there is no room
for the idler. be he dressed in broad
cloth or rags-and affords a panorama
of life and color nowhere else to be
witnessed ON this planet. The human
streams moving along the sidewalks
and filing it to the curb, the strange
cries of the huckster to attract atten-
ton to his wares, the chimney sweep,
whose paradise is London, the omni-
buses in all the colors Of the rainbow,
the carriages and the carts, so closely
following each other that life is i'm
periled in passing between them
these combine to make animated
scenes that are never ending source OF
interest to the visitor. especially II he
be concerned in the massing of the
millions.
Americans naturally turn to New
York when comparison is made with
London. The cities are so dissimilar
that Indifferent results attend the lik-
ening. There is no Broadway here,
but. instead. dozens of streets where
the turmoil is just as great as on our
celebrated and splendid highway. Take
the Strand, Regent street, Oxford street,
the Picadilly, High Hobborn, Fleet
street, Edgeware road and the avenues
centering around the bank of England,
to say nothing Of those running across
to the Surrey side of the Thames,
where 100000 Londoners make their
home, and it is hard to conceive how
the road of traffic and the movement
of pedestrians could be any greater II
London were a hundred times larger
than it is. Any more crowding in the
principal streets would bring every
thing to a standstill These great
highways have demonstrated the pos
sibilities of moving the greatest body
in the most compact space. New
Workers cling to the belief that in the
near future that city will become the
financial center of the world; this as
piration may be realized. But she
never can become the numerical me-
tropolis If that Interpretation turns
upon crowded streets and getting the
use of every available inch of space In
so doing. London's pre-eminence in
this respect is secured for the centu-
ries.
1t was my good fortune to witness
the millions of this town glorify Ba-
den-Powell and his gallant compatriots