Year: 1874

DdnDuTy LII LOuuOHs


Bailey is now seeing the sights i'm Lon
don. The following from his pen will
have soothing effect upon the reader
during the heated term:


There are many places in London with
which the general reader is acquainted,
but which he never saw. 1t is natural
that we should form in our own mind an
idea of the geographical and architecture
al features of the places and scenes and
incidents we read about. The impress
ions are instantaneous, but vivid; and
last through all time, unless we are SO
fortunate, or unfortunate, as to see with
which they rarely fail to be.


What was called a road when it really
was road through open country, several
hundred years ago, retains its name al
though its nature is completely trans
formed. The same of the lanes.


When st. Martins Church was built,
the location was in the open country,
between the cities of London and West
minister, and it was called st. Martin-in-
the-Fields. 1t is so called now, although
hemmed in by crowded streets, with the
fields and daiseys miles away.


st. Giles-in-the-Fields is another well
preserved misnomer. 1t rears its dingy
and smoky front i'm the somewhat doubt
full and oppressive neighborhood of the
Seven-Dials, and is about as suggestive OF
fields as mole on bootblack's ear.


The hills are not quite as ambiguous
as the fields and lanes, but Holborn and
Ludgate hills-both familiar names to the
reader, and now crowded thoroughfares,
are so vague as to require the aid of a
policeman to find their ascent. If T was
going to have hill / would have one, and
not fool around with tow path.


The lanes and streets are more intri-
cate 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 indi-
vidually applied to their streets are in
many instances duplicated, and the con-
servative 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.


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


There is the Strand, for instance.
From Charing Cross to Temple Bar it is
the Strand; beyond the Bar it is Fleet
street. Then it becomes Ludgate Hill
then st. Pauls Churchyard, Cheerful
name for street,; then Cannon street
then East Cheap, (whatever that means);
and finally Great Tower street, where its
checkered career, like that of many q
human being has been, is ended by the
Tower of London. This is the one bright
ray in the dark history of that structure.


But in the numbering of their houses
LondOners have achieved the greatest
success. You will frequently find the
first and last number on a street directly
opposite each other. This apparent inn
possibility is easily performed by num-
bering first on one side of the street and
then back on the other side. Let us sup
pose case. You want No. $40 on Great
Christopher street. You find one end OF
that avenue, look up at the number OF
the first house, and learn Gas you are sure
to do nine hundred and ninety-nine times
i'm every one thousand searches for the
highest number) that it is the first num-
ber, No. /. "Thunder and lightning! y
you exclaim, and Mt once put up the
street at lively gait, looking neither to
the right nor left, but keeping straight
ahead, and thinking only to the fact that
you have to pass four hundred and
twenty houses before reaching your num-
Der.


BY the time you have gone nearly that
distance you are suddenly confronted by
wall of building ahead, and fatter your
self that the journeyi is at an end. You look
up to the nearest door with the expec-
tation that you are seven hundred and
some, and are amazed to see that you are
barely half that with but few houses
ahead of you. You hurry on with hys-
terical eagerness, only to find the expec-
tation of some unraveling of the hideous
riddle baseless fabric. You reach the
last house on that side. 1t is 420. You
look across to the opposite door; it is 42l.
To the next; it is 422. You call a
policeman and tell him your trouble. He
explains that the number, Judging from
surroundings, must be at the lower
end of the street, and his information is
not exactly like the trickling of crystal
waters over mossy rocks, but it is knowl.
edge, and. knowledge is power; and you
knock your head against post, and pick
up your weary and prespiring legs and
start on again. When you stand before
$40 and find that it is exactly opposite
No. /, the language with which yor
clothe your ideas fits better than il
looks.


There are other ways of numbering the
houses peculiar to London, but they are
so intricate that nobody can explain then
on paper.