The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-04-10

after it was opened in 1921 a local
rhymster inquired in amazement:
What's not destroyed by Times devour-
ing hand?
Where's Troy. and where's the Maypole
in the Strand?
Peas, cabbages and turnips once grew
Now stands New Bond street and a
Newer square.
Such piles and buildings now rise up and
down,
London itself seems growing out of town.
But the city fathers thought, appar-
emily, that London had almost reached
the limits of it's inroads on cabbage
patches and turnip fields. With a
short-sighted policy in striking con-
trast to that pursued by the ancestors
Of the Dukes of Westminster and Bed
ford, who are now rolling in wealth
from their ground rents, they granted
perpetual leases on their building lots
at annual rentals often as low as $40
a year and never exceeding $35. A
queer clause was inserted in these
leases by which, every fourteen years,
the holders of them have to pay a
fine" amounting to seven times the
annual rental. By a subsequent ar
rangement, however, 1t was provided
that these seven-year fines" might be
committed by the payment Of a lump
sum. Furthermore, If the leasehOlder
through any mischance neglected to
pay his rent and thus forfeited the
lease the corporation, in another burst
of generosity, bound itself, as a spe-
cial act of grace, to grant renewal of
the lease on the same terms for eighty
years, at the expiration of which time
the property reverts to the city,
What is legally done in England re-
mains done for all time, and thus the
city obtains annually only a few hun
dred pounds from this property which
ought to bring it in hundreds Of thou
sands. And it is not the shopkeepers
themselves who profit by the folly of
these long dead and buried civic rul-
ers. Few of them are aware that the
city owns the ground in which their
shops stand. They pay big rentals to
the smart folk who first got hold Of
the leases.
Bond street.-the old and the new"
combined-is and has been for half a
century the favored shopping district
OF royalty, wealth and ariStocracy. It
is the mecca of fashions pilgrims from
all over the earth, and particularly
from all over the United States And
1t is as dingy and grimy and little and
shabby outside as its shops are gor-
geous inside. Few buildings in the
street are over three stories high.
Bond street senior is of decent width
for a London street-but Bond street
Junior is degenerate offspring of the
older and shorter street. 1t goes only
a few yards on its own hook, when it
contracts its roadway and narrows it's
sidewalks to a few feet, and wobbles
a bit here and there as though in its
infancy it had been uncertain as to
the course it should follow through the
cabbage patches and ttrnip fields.
Externally most of the shops are not
much to look at. Few of them go in
for window displays; they never hold
bargain sales; they make no appeals
to the crowd; they scorn to have re-
course to any of the ordinary methods
of attracting custom. By their very
avoidance Of all show and glitter they
proclaim the wide gulf of exclusive
ness which separate them from the
garish shops of Regent street, Oxford
street and Piccadilly, before which
gaping crowds may always be found
They consider themselves "the real
thing" and as long as their wealthy
and arlstocratic customers take them
al their own estimate and are content
TO pay for their wares much more than
they would have to pay elsewhere, they
Will continue the recognized arbiters OF
London fashions, both masculine and
feminine
why Bono street, narrow and un-
slightly as it is, should be thus favored
by the social elect is at first a mys-
terry to the casual observer. But 1t is g
mystery that is soon solved Roya,
patronage and f1unkeyism have made
Bond street and relieved it of the ne
cessity of hustling for trade. Royalty
has put the seal of its approval or
Bond street, and where royalty points
the way, wealth o5sequiously follows
When you enter Bond street from
Piccadilly, the first thop encountered
on the left-hand side AZ bakers. Oc-
cupying a corner site, a. has a frontage
both on Piccadilly ndeBond street. II