The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-10-25
THE LONDON SUNDAY

From the New York Sun.
 London hotel keepers are charging
 the London Sunday with driving so
 many American tourists to the Conu- nent that unless measures are taken to
 renlaee the Sabbath stiffness with a day of gayety they declare they Will become impoverished through loss or
 American custom. The hotel managers are not the first to blame the Saopath for a. diminution of American summer visitors to the British Isles. formld- able movement Is developing In London for an open Sunday and 1t has become customary to associate this interesting demand with the necessity of catering to the tourist trade.
 We suspect that the good people or London are seeking to cloak their own desires for a Continental Sunday uhoer the memorable requirements or coih- merce, and are endeavoring To shit responsibility for an eventual apandon- ment of the old fashion Sunday rom their own consciences to the hardeneu hearts of American peripatetlcs. It would represent no unusual phenome- non in history if the descendants Of the
 Pilgrim Fathers, returning to Plymouth on the luxurious modern liners, were to march upon London and With thelr pockets jingling with gold demand secular Sabbath for their own partic- ular amusement.
 Truth, However, compels us to warn the London county council that thls is not the case. It is one of the anclent | habits of Europe to speak sadly or London,s depressing Sundays, and the ladaptable American doubtless echoes the criticism, but there can be no sin
 cerity in his complaint. sWe are not familiar with any wide demand Tor d further liberalization of our own local Sunday ordinances, and the New Yorker who does not criticise his self-made day of rest can have no grievance against
 the London Sunday.
 Bronx park and it's zoo, the public golf links in Van Cortlandb park, the Mali and the shady hooks in Central bark are the chief Sunday recreative centers of the New Yorker. The Lon
 don zoo is open on Sundays only to the Fellows of the Geological society and their friends, but the public golf links l in the environs are crowded with Sun day players; there is Sunday music Tn Hyde park, and the beautiful botanical gardens at Kew are available Tor sun l day outings.
 1 We score one for our less sedate civic element with Coney Island. but London | hAa in0 Thames above Richmond. We have our Fifth avenue and Riverside drive omni- bus rides as a growing source of sun day recreation; London has the splen-
 did coaching trips to Richmond, Busoy park and Hampton court. Our sacred
 concerts" are unknown in London; but
 they are replaced by the splendid and
 cheap performances of leading orches-
 tras and singers in many halls.
 The stringency of our Sunday liquor law is as strange to London as Is our
 Sunday sandwich. Within the four
 mile radius of Charing Cross all Lon Idon public houses are open on Sundays
 from 1 to 3 o'clock in the afternoon
 and again from to II; outside the
 radius they are open from 12:30 to 2;3o
 and from 6 to 10. These are the drink ling periods for the local tipplers. If a
 man is a bona fide traveller, that is if
 he has journeyed three miles from the
 place at which he slept on Saturday might, he can be served with drinks In
 any public house at any hour on sun
 day. The only condition imposed on
 him Is that he must be prepared to say,
 If asked, that his three mile journey
 was not for the exclusive purpose oi
 buying a drink.
 Americans cannot reasonably ooJec' | to London's Sunday.