Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1912-10-13
ENGLISHMAN'S HOME
TO BE NUMBERED
Special Correspondence Of The Star.

Special Correspondence Of The Star.
| LONDON, October . 1912.
lOCITE strong movement is on foot
z in this country, and none too soon,
either. to put an end to the rather silly
but almost universal custom of giving
names to private houses. and to adopt
the eminently more sensible, if less po-
| etic one of numbering them instead. as is
| done in the United States and most other
parts Of the world.
Not. of course that houses aren't num-
| bered at all over here. You have only
| to remember your mo. John street
to be assured of that. But the average
British householder is so Unfortunately
fond Of christening his habitation some
! thing or other and then putting the name
on his stationery that perhaps half the
houses in a street will be simply Glen
sides or Believes or whatnot. with
result that a stranger who is looking for
q particular house and knows only the
name of it or even its number. IL it has
| one, may have to roam the street from
end to end before he finds it. which, of
| course. is a nuisance. One can imagine,
for instance. the delight Of sitting in a
taxicab in u long and lonely suburban
road on dark night, with the meter in
| duStriously ticking off tuppences, while
the driver scrutiniZes each Of the badly
lighted houses to discover If it is Lynd-
| hurst or IvanhOe or The Nook, accord
ing to the taste of Your friend.
-.
Letters by the thousand miscarry for
lack Of definite number to deliver them
to, and besides it is manifestly ridiculous
to have rows upon rows of cheap, jerry
built VILLAS swanking as Blenheims
CARTONS and Oranges, and so at last a
large section of the public here is in
favor of having every dwelling number
ed and known by it's number OF course
| In this most conservative of countries
such step in the direction of con-
| Venlence and common sense is meeting
with logged opposition.
Some OF the little people who set I'D
housekeeping in the suburbs Gt is there
that the ''Nooks'' and "Ivanhoes" most
abound) take the naming of their by 4
| rOOkeries terribly seriously. The writer
heard one Of them demand of everybody
in drawing-room recently whether they
thought him overambitious in giving the
name of one of Stevenson's island homes
| to the semi-detached cottage in a garden
suburb" which he had taken on the in
stallment plan. or whether it would be
better to name 1T one of seven or eight
other things
| Such folk are fair game for cartoonists
and other funny men. who are having a
lot Of sport with the suburbanite and his
villa. One of the comic artists, for in
stance, draws attention to the general
lack Of anything like appropriateness in
housenaming. He shows that a house
named bellevue" is certain to command
Il view only of a railroad track or a slum,
while THE Pines or THE Elms' is GER
tain to be in a treeless locality, Rose
bank close to a soap factory and Mon
| RepOs next door to q boiler works.
''Edelweiss'' is a favOrite name, too, in
the suburbs Of London. though the Alps.
where this flower grows, are hundreds of
| miles away
| One of the London papers has sent a
man out to catalogue the house names,
and some amusing discoveries result. One
man has named his residence PRO Tenn
because he has it only a short lease,
but the name that seersred to be prime
favorite among the siburbanites was
"Cozy Cot" The reporter found it spelled
variously as Cosy Cot ''Kozi Kot,"
| Cosy Kot' and 'Kosy Cot" while other
names on which there was a heavy run
were 1.-The Hutch" "Clovelly" and THE
Laurels." with no laurel trees within
miles, of course. SCOTS novels have
given their names to hundreds of SUBJ
urban villas, while there are EAST
| Lynnes'' in abundance and "Lalla
Rookhs'' ad lib.