LONDON’S IMMENSITY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8823, 27 May 1907, Page 1

LONDON’S IMMENSITY.

You could not. in any case have been more happily inspired if you wished to gather a general idea of London, glance at her monuments, and penetrate even to the secrets of her home?, than to take an omnibus j ride. Gladstone himself said so: “ The best way to see London is from the top of an omnibus.” For a few pence the town unfolds itself before your eyes to the regular trot of two strong horses, who seem to take a pleasure in their trip. Here, the whole length of Piccadily, are spacious clubs, whose high windows give you a passing glimpse of quiet and comfortable retreats in the midst of the turmoil. Farther on an immense park stretches like a sea of verdure at the foot of a cliff of princely dwellings, Close by the equestrian statue of Wellington, a mold of stiffness touching upon caricature, plunges you into amazement, unless you burst into laughter. It is your first meeting with English art. Leaving the great central arteries, the imposing quarters ofjarge hotels, fine sbops, and handsome buildings, you pass into less animated, almost deserted streets, lined with ugly brick houses all blackened with smoke. This hideous architecture extends for kilometres, until you arrive again in noisy districts, whereshops are crowded together, theatres rise, the dense traffic of the roadways recommences, and where an active commercial life is concentrated. They are like so many new towns in the large ones. To other quiet suburbs succeed other busy streets. Poor quarters, swarming with halfnaked brats, pass like sombre visions of misery. You are swallowed beneath viaducts groaning under the perpetual passing of trains. And the brick houses reappearing extend interminably under their sad slate roofs. The town is enormous, gigantic, endless. It is around you everywhere. You cannot escape from it. You are imprisoned in London. You at last fully realise its immensity. And you abandon yourself to the j intoxication of being, on a minute { omnibus, nothing more than an im* I perceptible atom floating on this sea jof bricks and mortar: London ! the | colossal town, gloomy and grimy, I sumptuous and sordid, grandiose and squalid; London! the largest city in the world i —Felix Girard, in Daily Mail.