Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1902-08-15

Street were practically empty but for the
omnibus. But a most surprising change |
occurred between and Z. There is
nothing more interesting than the III
tense life in the business thoroughtares
If London. Perhaps New York Is a
rival, but Chicago has too wide streets
to approach it. Nothing but London
hansom can make time. That famous
rig threads its way with incredible speed.
Foot passengers scurry from under the
horses nose, its wheels almost Craze the
omnibus (neyer quite touch), aud 1T
stops at nothing but the policeman's up
lifted hand.
The next best thing in London, Ito
he a bit Ilibernian), was the day out of
London, down at Swanley in Kent. We
were invited to the graduating luncheon
aud prize giving, at the Swanley Horti-
cultural College. Our hostess was Miss
Wilkinson, a landscape gardener, who is
keenly alert to the practical advantage
of training young women to be head
gardeners for country estates, market
gardeners and florists. In two years
course each student is trained i'll every
phase from flowers, through hot bed cul-
ture to tree pruning and study of soils,
supplemented by laboratory work In
chemistry and botany. a girl is some
times sent chiefly for the physical adj
vantage of the outdoor life. Then she
is allowed to work out of doors only
until 10 or II o'clock, when she is given
hot luncheon and sent to bed. 1t is
an ideal sanitarium for delicate girls,
Infinitely superior to the gossiping We
randa of the ordinary health resort.
Occasionally, the daughter of a country
gentlemen or an heiress to a large estate
comes for a course in order to superin-
tend her own parks and gardens. One
of the trustees, a woman of large home
interests and vitality interested in colon
ial matters, told me that they hoped
some of the graduates would be attract
ed to South Africa, where there certain
ly were wide opportunities for market
gardening and incidentally they would
be an important element in the English
colonization scheme. For the Boer WON
an does not make an English home
even though she were the wife of a Brit
ish soldier.
To return to Stratford. We are il
y lodgings. as we have been everywhere
except in London. 1t is altogether thu
most pleasant way of living and we sc
many glimpse of English home lif
wholly unattainable from hotel or board
ing house. We rent our bedroom an'
sitting-room, do our own marketin!
which our hostess prepares and serves
supplementing our forgetfulness an'
shortcoming out of her own larder, in
truly hospitabe fashion. If the shoI
keeper, looking at the puzzled foreigne
, who wonders whether she wants "tur
penny" or give and a ha" piece O
cheese, gets half the fun out of it tina
, we do, it's fair exchange of our goo
time. Our host tells us that 'nobod
here says anything but Stratford-or
AVN" (exactly as Hdren without the II
so we gladly miss the less melodiou
q "Av-on."
+ We went to vesper service at Trinity
9 We duly wondered at the low-ceile
g room where Shakespeare was born; W
n sat on the settle where he wooed An
g Hathaway. The only thing unfamilia
% through description or pictures was r
h production from painting in Londol
+, The Courtship of viii Shakespeare an
"a Ann Hathaway" Nowhere else hay
10 we seen picture of Shakespeare as
n young and a very handsome fellow, an
% quite equal to the reported escapades {
70 his youth.
ID Here III Stratford, Marie Corelli h;
d recently bought house and garde
at which she calls Mason Croft. We wei
Mt this evening to a garden party there an
" exhibit of flowers and plants by til
,e school children. The novelist herse
A. was not on exhibition; she would ce
r. tainly have detracted from the horticu
W tural exhibit.
Tomorrow we go to Warwick Castl
thence to the land of George Eliot,
rs little. farther north and to tie Cathedr
re towns in the east counties.
u | wish had time to tell of the tr
u. to Blenheim Castle and the good thin,
III the English people say of our America
lg Duchess of Marlborough who with Il
r. Vanderbilt gold and Vanderbilt fina
er ciering has restored beautiful histor
es estate. SARAH Nj. HoBsoN.
re July 2S, 1902.