Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1909-10-13
.LONDON'S RIVER
SADLY NEGLECTED.
AVERAGE cockNEY THINKS BUT
LITTLE OF THE
THAN s.
PRIVATE COMPANY TAKES HOLD
OF THE DISCARDED
STEAMBOATS,.

the Thames, appeals not at all. He is
surprised when a stranger shows an
interest in it. It's beauties and uses
are very vague things to him. Though
the Thames with its bold curve
through the heart OF London makes
an idea. waterway, it is hardly used
as a means of transit. Since the
time when the Strand was a row o.
great houses with gardens stretchine
down behind them on the waterfront.
and when every person of Importance
had his barge, river traffic, in the pas
senger sense, seems steadily to have
deteriorated. Forty years ago the
river still held its own to a certain
extent To go to Greenwich by
steamer and eat the fish dinner at the
old inn there, as the Royal Academy
/ still does once year, was one of the
commonplaces of fashion. and the
commuter from the riverside suburbs
used the steamers twice day. Thack.
cray makes Titmarsh and his legal
friend go straight from their cab to
the steamer hat was to start them
on their tour of the Rhine. Now they
would leave English soil at least
forty miles from London.
The climax of the rivers desue-
tude came two years ago. The pro.
gressive or radical municipality VINO
were then defeated, mindful perhaps
of the rivers departed glory. has
made the penny steamer one OF the
chief planks OF their platform When
they came into power the bought at
a great price what were described by
the coekney as floating palaces, and
set them running. The steamers did
} not anything like to pay their work.
ing expenses, and the result was a
dismal failure. One OF the first
, things the conservative moderates
, did when they came into power was
to abolish the service. Even so il
costs the public a good deal.
According to the accounts made
public the other day, the privilege OF
, owning unused steamers and piers
/, meant, last year, about $4,000 on
the rates and taxes. Many of the
boats have been sold. Though one OF
the reasons of their condemnation
was that they were unfit for service
, they seem to have been doing well un
der other flags. One, sold for $3.50
mas gone 1000 miles across the Bay
of Biscay, and then on to the Dan
ube. At Archangel the market value
of another for which the county coun
ell got e975 turned out to be e7,999
Another sold to Dundee for G75s
steamed the four hundred miles in
bad weather, and four days later was
licensed to carry passengers. And
the cost of the paddle wheels alone
remarked a radical politician, was
thousand pounds boat
Private Company Begins.
Fourteen steamers still remain idle
at the Thames side. These have been
bought by company, and have just
been started running If the venture
is successful the present county coun.
ell will have to do a good deal of ex-
planning away of a policy which has
! allowed these ships to remain idle,
when the municipal elections come
in Harch. Should the venture fail il
will show that the Londoner and the
visitor to London, are sadly lacking
in appreciation of Thompson's large
deep, majestic, king Of floods.
London's beauty, said lola. lies not
in it's monuments. but in the majestic
quality of its quays and bridges. To
the average cockney this seems as in
accurate a statement as the great
French realist was ever guilty of. As
matter of fact, it has as much truth
as any other generality of the kind
To one of the Stuart kings wnC
threatened to remove his court from
London because the citizens refus ed
supplies, the then Lord Mayor is said
to have replied: Your Majesty has
your city of London will obey accord
ingly; but she humbly desires that
when your Majesty shall remove
your court, you viii please to leave
the Thames behind you"
Besides being as much the raison
d'etre of London, as its rivers are OF
New York, the Thames contributes
just as much to the life and the pic
turesqueness of the greater, albeit the
less known part of the town. There
are now, again, two ways of seeing
London which can be recommended
. the tourist above all "rubber-neck
cars" and personally-conducted pere
CARNATIONS. The one is to spend some
promiscuous days on the tops of ON
nibuses, the old horse buses for
choice: the other will be a Thames
penny steamer. The journey on the
latter must be made towards the sea
from west to east. Any general view
of London's architecture is twice as
| effective, if one looks toward the ris.
I ing of the sun. The west wind is
! the prevailing current here; rain
| storms usually come up from off the
I Atlantic and in their passing wash
clean the western and southwestern
| facades Of the buildings; while the
reverse side of the picture is kept
grinly by the east winds that come,
| fog and smoke laden, from the Essex
marshes along the lower reaches oil
| the river, and from the factories and
,