Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1900-11-27
Letter From Paris.
Paris, France, Nov. 10, IS

VI lAS 9FAA4t q .ASM d4yS SAASSl - 2 ~
minder that old Jefferson still glides Sc
renely down Times eternal tide.
In copying the two letters sent you, 1
find your type-sstters made few errors.
result, most likely. of my not writing as
legibly asI might have done. AS now
remember them they are as follows
In speaking of the Tower of London
you have it Loudon town. should be
London tower. Then. in speaking of the
fine collection of paintings presented by
Lady Wallace to the British Nation, you
say it is in the old I" Hartford House
should be Hartford House, so called after
the noble family who owned it for genera
tions. Referring to the murderof Rizzio,
you haveit " Pizzio. Then Stratford on
Avon, Shakespeare. home, you have it
=" Stafforn on Avon" 1 mentioned our
having been shown through severalof the
colleges at oxford-you have it cot
tages" instead of colleges. There are no
cottages there, in the American sense,
that can now remember.
AS write, recall a few more of the
sights in London, which 1 will mention
before taking up Paris and the EXPOSE
ton. The Criterion theatre there is all
under ground, and from the street level
a great hotel towers over the theatre
Never having seen a complete theatre,
with two galleries. so located, Itook my
wife to play there. Our tickets called
for seats in dress circle, which is the first
gallery over Parquet. When we arrived
there. about 8 o'clock, sure enough we
entered tho vestihule of the Hotel and
then We're shown down two fights of
stairs, where lady usher showed us to
our seats and sold us programme of the
play for half shilling. or II cents
Therefore. the nearer you got to the
ground floor of the theatre the more steps
you have to climb in getting out, After
getting in it looks just like any other
theatre Both here and in all London
theatres you have to pay for programme
of play, which to an American seems odd.
The streets of London are filed with
ompibuses, as these and cabs form about
the only means of getting about the city.
They are toP-heavy looking things, too,
as they have a double row of seats facing
front, on top, and carry IA passengers,
and 1s below, inside; and never permit
more passengers aboard than will fill the
20 seats. The fare on top is only half
the price of seats inside, which is from
one penny up to cents, according to
distance. When it is not raining the top
seats are always occupied first. as the
view is fine and all tourists rush for them
because they can see the city so much
better from such an elevation. Cab
fares are very reasonable, also, there as
well as here. In our money it is only
about IS cents per mile or less than a
mile, and you are expected to give the
driver &C as tip. If youhave any trunks
they take them with you on top of cab
for fram to II cents each, and no charge
for hand baggage taken inside of cab
with passengers. The old underground
railroad of London is a miserable affair
dark and forbidding in every way, but
the new electric underground road is fine
and modern, and the trains make won
derfu1 speed.
In the great Libary in the British
Museum there are a number of original
letters written by England's famous
people, in the ages past and we saw one
written by George Washington to some
disnitary in England giving an outline of
the plan of Washington City. Ihave for
gotten the name of the person said letter
was written to. Among the letters we
took time to read was one from Oliver
Cromwell to his wife, written in Edin-
burgh, Scotland, dated April 12th, 1851
one from Lady Jane Grey, in Tower of
London, July 18th 1885, one from queen
Elizabeth, January 2nd, 1907, and one
from Mary. Queen of Scots, to Queen
Queen Elizabeth. complaining of the rigor
of her imprisonment few lines from
Nelson. written just before the battle of
Trafalgar, in which he was killed /. and
one from napoleon in Egypt to his brother
Jerome. The tone of the letter clearly in
dictated that fate was going against him.
and one week after that letter was written
the naval battle of the Nile was fought
and the English destroyed his entire fleet
The Rosetta Stone now owned by Eng
land, in the museum, was first found by
the French, in 1898, among the ruins of
Fort st. Julian, near Alexandria, and
passed into the hands of the British by
the treatyof Alexandria, Its antiquity is
borne out by reference on it to Ptolemy
5th, King of Egypt B. c. I9s.
So far as I haye been, both in England
and FRANCE, the trolley and electric SUR
face cars orepptin evidence. The streets
in London are most too narrow for them,
There are some cars in both cities, Lon
don and Paris, drawn by horses, and
few old tram cars propelled by steam or
compressed air, and like the omnibuses
they are double.deckers and miserable
affairs, running at long uncertain inter
walls. and make poor time. The broad
avenues in this city are especially suited
to electric cars of the American pattern.
but they are not here, tor some unex-
planned reason. In short England, Scot
land and France, in fact the whole con-
tinent, are far behind our country in rail
road travel. The measure of their pro-
gress in that direction seems to have
been reached, and their reluctance to fol-
low Americas advanced ideas in such
matters is most marked. In automobiles.
think, France hasrather the lead-that
Is to say they are in more general use
here than in America.
The great Exposition which closes here