Year: 1874

l '.- -.i LONDON STREETS. .l-.. -... Fhe lnncs and streets ara more intricate i than the monthly statement of the. U. s. | Treasury. Owing to London being a combination of many parishes, boroughs and towns, the names which they individ- ually applied to their streets are in many instances duplicated, and the conserva- tive tendency of the English have led them to retain them rather than make the change which the case actually demands. | Consequently we have several High streets, several Broad streets, and several of many other names, scattered over the city, and causing the stranger to carry on like a pirate. The confusion is further enhanced by streets with several names to each, and by the process of numbering the houses, which IS the most hilarious abandonment of system ever witnessed.

 1 A street will begin with one name, drop suddenly into another, flop abruptly into a third, and turn completely over into fourth, and so on.

 | There Is the Strand, for instance. From l Charing Cross to Temple Bar 1t is the Strand; beyond the Bar it is Fleet street. Then 1t becomes Ludgate hill; then St. Paul's churchyard, Cheerful name for a street) then Cannon street, ;then East Cheap l (whatever that means); and finally Great l Tower street, where it's checkered career, l like that of many a human being has been, is ended by the Tower of London. This is the one bright ray in tho dark history of that structure.

 | But in the numbering of It's houses Lon doners have achieved the greatest success. You will frequently find the first and last number on a street directly opposite each other. This apparent imposslbility is easily performed by numbering first on one side of the street and then back on the other side. Let us suppose case. You want No. $40 on Great Christopher street. You find one end of that avenue, look mp at the number of the first house, and learn Gas you are sure to do nine hun dred and ninety-nine times in every one thousand searches for the highest num- 1 ber) that it Is the first number, No 1. Thunder and lightning! you exclaim, and at once put up the street at lively gait, looking neither to the right nor left, but keeping straight ahead, and thinking only of the fact that you have to pass four hundred and twenty houses before reaching your number.

 | By the time you have gone nearly that distance you are suddenly confronted by Q wall of building ahead, and fatter your l SOAA OhA(AO OiAO JouAhCJ To tIO CIlIs Lou 1 look up to the nearest door with the ex- pectation that you are seven hundred and something, and arc amazed to see that you are barely half that with but Q few houses ahead you. You hurry on with bated breath, searching every door with hysteri- cal eagerness, only to find the expectation of soon unraveling of the hideous riddle a baseless fabric. It is APO. You look across to the opposite door; it is 421. To the next; 1t is 422. You call policeman and tell him your trouble. He explains that the humber, judging from surround ings, must be at the lower end of the street, and his information is not exactly like the trickling of crystal waters over messy rocks, butit is knowledge and knowl- edge is power; and you knock your head against a post, and pick up your weary and perspiring legs and start >on again, When you stand before $40 and find that 1t is exactly opposite No l, the language with which you clothe your ideas fits bet ter than 1t looks.

 ENGLISH WOMEN.

 Would to Heaven some other pen should make known the humiliating fact that in taste Ill dress the English woman is far behind her American sister!

 Many of the garments worn by the En- | glish ladies were the American style a year ago, and I contend most earnestly that a sealskin cloak with linen dress. or heavy huff and victorine with sum- mer silk, are not the acme of good taste: and yet I have frequently seen these combinations, on the fashionable streets and promenades.

 When you meet with an English lady dressed in the latest style and with most excellent taste you may be quite confident she is an American,

 Some of the ladies who occupy the 1 Hyde Park carriages with liveried coach man and footman on the box are actually dowdyish in their appearance.

 l The English woman is not as handsome as the American woman. But I do not 1 know as she claims to be. More hand some women can be seen in one evening on Main street in Danbury than in an en- l tire afternoon on fashionable Regent street in London.

 The English woman does not dress in the ''style, as we are pleased to consider | 1t in America. She clings to hoops and | bustles' and still wears the high gypsy hat. A great many plait the front hair down the forehead, just as the aunts and middle-aged cousins appear in those tire l buns. venture to say you will see ten ''country-looking" belles in the boxes of a first-class London theatre where you will find one in the boxes of theatre in any American city of fifteen thousand popula- tion.

 The pictures of women to be found in the English illustrated papers. give, you will remember, an expression of languid refinement that have often admired, and which is so uniform in the prints, that I knew l would recognize an English wo- man the moment saw her.

 1 No one can imagine how grieved am to record the fact that the expression of the illustrated woman is rare exception, the finest looking women are to be found among the poorer classes. But of the two, the English woman is far the healthier. Her red cheeks are the gift of nature; they are not store cheeks. And it is not dead color like that of the buildings, but clear, deep color. It is not confin- ed to any one particular class, but it is the common heritage of all