The Newtown bee., 1905-04-07
IN FOREIGN CLIMBS.
A LONDON RAMBLE.
WRITTEN FOR THE BEE BY ROSS
 JEWELL.

LII . COluAOAU Ou OllC Ohdl of the British metropolis, and the sojourner in the 'mother city" soon understands his meaning. London! How the pulse quickens as it's towers and dOmeS and pinnacleS come into view and the din of the mighty city strikes upon the ear! The tourist has been wanderer but here for few brief days he may feel at home,-at home among the cherished monuments of his race. Streets, parks, churches, museums, art galleries, theatres, government buildings, Father Thames with his bridges,-all are his. Much, to be sure, is new but much is familiar. His feelings as he looks at famous edi- art are frequently best described in Jobs immortal language: 1T have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee."
 Fifteen miles from east to west and nine miles from north to south are the limits of London proper with it's popu- latiOn of nearly five million, but the Metropolitan Police district is circu- lar area 30 miles in diameter with about six million inhabitants. Let us take a ramble from west te east along the north bank of the Thames.
 The Houses of Parliament extend
  cover eight acres. The Victoria tower at one end of the buildings is $40 feet high, and the clock tower at the other end contains "Big Ben," bell of 13 tons. The minute hand on the clock dial is steel bar l2 feet long. The legis- lative chambers are long, high rooms rich in ornament. - The members sit upon long benches, richly upholstered in red leather, which rise on the right and left. The throne stands at one end of the House of Lords under rich canopy and when the intervening doors are open the monarch's eye travels to the farther end of the House of Commons.
 While crossing an open space to Westminster Abbey we look involun- tarily for the spot where Falstaff stood ''stained with travel" and leered at King Hal with so poor effect, and as we approach the venerable pile we half expect to encounter the Man in Black of Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. No building in the world can equal this in interest for here England's great ones are buried or commemorated by monuments; Americans note with | pleasure marble bust of Longfellow in the Poets Corner. Near bust of ''rare Ben Jonson' is statue of Shakespeare holding in his hand a scroll with these lines from ''The Tempest:''
 ''The cloud-capp'd towers, the georgeous The solemn temples. the great globe itself, | And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
 Leave not rack behind We are .4 such 4 3,s stuff AS dreams are made or, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep"
 But one inscription is entirely out of harmony with the solemn spirit of the place. The lines are from Gay:
 Life is a jest. and all things show it, I thought so once, but now I know it.''
 The Coronation chair, in which all mOnarchs have been crowned for the last six centuries, holds beneath its seat the Stone of Scone upon which Scottish sovereigns were crowned fol centuries. Of the royal tombs proba
 bly, those of Elizabeth and Mary Queer These royal haters, the murdered and
 the murderesS, now lie near to eacf
 Other,-
 After life's ftful fever they sleep we'll"
 Passing through Whitehall to Char
 ing Cross and Trafalgar Square WI
 walk along the Strand and Fleet stree
 to St Paul's. It's vast dome is 365 fee
 above the pavement and 145 feet il diameter. St Paul'S contains statue! of Generals Howe, Cornwallis ant
 Packenham, also statue of Sir Johr |, Moore:
 Mot a drum was heard not funeral note, As his corse to the rampant we hurried" The Duke of Wellington and Admira
 Nelson are buried in the crypt, as
 also Sir Christopher Wren, the archi tect of the great cathedral. A mura tablet above his tomb bears Latil