The Coolidge examiner., 1932-08-12

| circle Is complete. All reacned pest
by busses.
Trafalgar square is a place OF
perilous delights. Eight streets de
bouch upon 1t, each filled with roar
Ing traffic coming from unexpected
angles, and made more perilous to
an American by the English insist
ence upon the left-hand turn.
One leaps from safety island to
SAFETY island across these streets,
as If they were stepping stones In
a torrent-omnibuses, steam lorries,
donkey carts, limousines, the small,
| barn-swallowlike cars which taxa
tion has thrust upon English mo-
tordom, brewers vans drawn by
elephantine horses, screaming mo-
torcycles with the latest editions.
Once Trafalgar square was the
kings news, where various mon
archs stabbed their horses. Honest
artisans shaped weapons for Eng
lish gamecocks in Cockspur street.
Fronting on the square is the ma
tional gallery, crammed with treas
ures of art. OF all the 1,5O0-odd
churches In London, the visitor is
apt to carry away the most vivid
memory of st. Martin's-in-the-
Fields. The gray and white and
black pillars of its majestic portico
gain added value, of course, when
seen across the open square.
In little house which once stood
here, Ben Johnson wrote Drink to
Me Only With Thine Eyes" which
some people hold to be one of the
finest ballads in the English Ian
guage, though deprecating the sen
timent. Heine and Ben Franklin
and Charles Dickens have roomed
close by.
The Mall and Buckingham Palace.
From Trafalgar, too, the visitor
can peer through the fine Admir-
atty arch down the Mall, at the far
ther end of which stands Bucking-
ham palace. Eventually he will dis
cover this to be large and almost
violently ugly stone-fronted build
ing behind tall wrought-iron
fence, and that time Is wasted on
1t except during those stirring mo-
ments when the soldier guard is
changed.
He may recall that II was down
the Mall that Charles l walked to
| the headman's block, and that II
was named after the French game
of paille maille that Charles II
played upon 1t.
Across the square is the statue OF
Charles I, perhaps the finest eques-
| trian figure in London. One bridges
centuries of English history by a
glance at ii. Queen Eleanor's cross
first stood upon this site, the
twelfth-or was it the thirteenth?
cross erected by the sorrowing
King Edward to mark the places
where her casket was set down for
the night on the long route from
Lincoln to her tomb in Westmin-
ster. That was In the Thirteenth
century.
Much is to be seen hereabouts In
the compass of a short walk before
definitely embarking on a cruise
through London's streets. A turn
TO the left leads to Maiden lane,
where Voltaire and Turner once
lived. One may pause at Rules
oyster house for snack. not be-
cause of hunger, but because this
has been the resort of English act
ors since 1850. Fielding and Pope
and Goldsmith used to frequent II
when 1t was The Bedford Head"
and the home Of the Reunion club.
Just around the corner is Covent
garden, once the convent garden of
the abbey of Westminster. 1t has
been the great market for fruits
and vegetables ever since 1884. A
lively, sad, Industrious place, in
which the coster's donkeys furnish
the comic relief. Under the great
piazza, which was a century ago
London's most fashionable walk, old
women sit all summer long shelling
peas. Something of a comedown
from the patches and ruffles. and
the small swords and the snuff.
1t is to be feared the Covent gar
den opera has somewhat declined.
At all events. when one visits the
fine old house two jazz bands may
be heard offering interminable tom
tomming for a horde of dancers.
Here is Bow street and its DO
lice station, where the scarlet waist
coats of the Bow street runners"
gave the world it's idea of q uni
formed police force-or so Bow
street says. On the Russell street
corner is Wills coffee house, where
Dryden sat in judgment on plays,
and which is just as it used to be,
above the street level. Charles
Lamb lodged at No. 20 Russell
street and the National Sporting
club, most aristocratic of boxing
| clubs is at AZ King street. At No.