Contributor.

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 25, 16 September 1893, Page 5

Contributor.

MR W. H. MATHTESON ON HIS TRAVELS. LONDON IN JUNE. HOW IT STRIKES A COLONIAL. THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE. We arrived at Tilbury Docks on the 20th of June —one day before due date. A.S we approached the wharves there was great excitement, especially among the ladies, and now that relatives on shore and steamer were at last in sight of each other the delay incidental to the turning and mooring of the vessel was very tantalising. Ere long, however, many happy meetings had taken place, but I felt quite lonely among the crowd, for the friend to whom I had written to meet me had not received my letter, and was at that moment travelling somewhere in Wales. After the excitement had calmed down somewhat I was introduced by some of the passengers to their Home friends, and received quite a number of invitations, but the shortness of my stay precluded acceptance. Soon after this I found myself in London —the “Modern Babylon,” as it has been called. Its vast extent does not strike you much at first —it is when you travel over it day after day, and go five or six or even 10 miles in any direction and find nothing but thickly populated streets, that you begin to understand what London is. I spent three weeks travelling from eight o’clock in the morning till 12 or one o’clock each night in ’busses, cabs and on foot, and I was just beginning to be able to find my way about within a radius of a couple of miles of the Bank of England or St. Paul’s when I had reluctantly to leave it. Some great writer has said that “ you can get more for 6d and less for d£l in London than in any country in the world.” I found this to be true. I suppose there is no city in the world where you have to pay more for style than in London. You can go to a first-class hotel and pay 5s or 7s 6d for a dinner and a shilling to the waiter, or go round to a back or side street and get an equally good dinner, without the style, for 2s 6d. Perhaps the chronic grumblers in our fair town will not believe me when I say that you can get the cheapest lunch in Invercargill at Searle’s, Johnson’s, Deschler’s or Potter’s that you can get in any country in the whole world for Is, without any fees to waiters. I was told this before I left, but did not believe it, but experience has proved it. Of course I have not yet been to America, but if all I hear is true I will have to pay at least double the price one pays in London for the same article. I had considerable difficulty in getting an hotel, and my cabin-mate persuaded me to go with him to one near the Smithfield dead meat market. I hired a room (very small) for 12s a week, and got my meals where I liked. This is a decided advantage to a visitor, as you may be five miles from your hotel at meal times. I ' found it very handy, as almost every one knew tha meat market in London and I could therefore find my way back easily. I was wending my way ! up one of the streets in that direction ■on my first night in London when my attention was drawn to two men wheeling a great covered box on a low truck. They stopped nearly opposite me, and I soon found out that it was a splendid barrel organ. One of the men commenced to play a popular music-hall tune, when immediately, as if by magic, from all the neighbouring houses and lanes children came flocking and moved out into the middle of the street and began to dance. They were of all ages, from girls of 12 down to wee toddlers who -could scarcely walk. They fell into rows like so many soldiers, kept magnificent time, and turned and twisted backwards and forwards in a way that .simply delighted me. It was not un.

til I visited the largest music halls that I saw the same dance again. How they learned the difficult and intricate steps I cannot tell, but the fact remained that they not only danced them but danced them beautifully. There are three different kinds of pavings on the streets. .First, the ordinary paving stones or casing. This makes a terrible noise, and is very hard on the horses’ legs and on the springs of the vehicles. Where there is more heavy traffic the streets are laid with wood blocks. These, in wet weather, are very slippery, and I have seen several horses come down on their knees. The last and best of all is decidedly the wood underneath, wi h a coating of asphalt on top. This m ikes a smooth, noiseless roadway, pleasant for the horses as well as for the occupants of the hansoms, cabs or ’busses as the case may be. There are over 10,000 hansoms plying every day in the street; as many or more four-wheeled cabs, not unlike our street waggonettes, and about 5,000 ’busses. The hansoms are let out with two horses at from 18s to 21s per day, according - to the style of the vehicles. I expected to have seen very light hansoms running on such beautiful roads, but was informed that for hard wear the standard weight was about nine cwt. For the four-wheelers 14s per day is charged, and each man is supposed to bring that sum home with him every nig’ht, and then he has to get his own living over and above this. The vehicles have lowei' wheels than our cabs, and turn under the body on an English forecarriage. They are therefore able to turn round in the narrow streets in their own length. The ’busses weigh 29cwt., and are drawn by two strong horses, and carry 26 passengers — nearly four tons when loaded, and the fare is Id per mile. The view from the top of a ’bus (the popular part) is decidedly' interesting, the beauti-fully-dressed shops—no two alike—and the endless stream of traffic, forming a constantly - changing picture. There you will see the nobleman’s carriage, with footman and driver on the box seat in brilliant livery, with powdered wig’s, with all the pomp and pride of wealth, driven by a pair of most beautiful horses, with skins quite dazzling’ to look at, with the colours of their noble owner fluttering in the breeze, while just behind may be seen a costermonger’s donkey' cart, a vehicle out of all proportion to the size of the animal drawing it —the two illustrating the extremes of wealth and poverty. This to a stranger was most striking, but to a Londoner quite a matter of course. During my visit I was all over St. Paul’s Cathedral, and was fortunate enough to hear during one Sunday Dr Parker, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, and Archdeacon Farrar preach.

If asked as to who is the most important personage on London streets, I should say the policeman. In no other country in the world has the policeman so much responsibility'. With a simple wave of the hand he can stop the entire traffic of a street, which means often a thousand vehicles and if they dare to come on when he holds up his hand, the drivers can be heavily fined, and, should any accident to life or limb occur, have to stand their trial for manslaughter. The police are judge and jury rolled into one. They have the control of the drunks, and liberate them when sober, and never (hardly ever) bring up one before the magistrate. This refers to the Metropolitan police only. They have a most effective way of dealing with the larrikin element —one that I should strongly recommend to our worthy sergeant. When they catch any of these gentry prowling’ about theatres, music halls, or in fact anywhere they ought not to be, they kick, cuff, and beat them soundly, with an admonition to make themselves scarce. I heard no complaints about their cruelty, and they appeared to be universally respected. When such a city r as London can simplify her police court business in this way, surely it is not necessary for our force (small enough at best) to spend half their

time in making - out elaborate returns, and hunting up J.P.’s in the busy hours of the morning to try a poor “ drunk ” and fine him perhaps ss. Does not the ponderous nature of our laws defeat the very object for which they were made ? I respectfully refer this matter to the gentlemen most interested —our 'worthy and respected Justices of the Peace. I come now to a subject that will be special interesting to our farming friends. I have mentioned that we got lodgings in an hotel close to the Smithfield dead meat market. It was late when we retired, and at two o’clock next morning I was awakened by a tremendous noise. I looked out of the window, and there came clattering over the stone pavement van after van of killed meat (mostly from America, imported alive, and killed in London.) These carcases were split down the middle and sold in halves. .The vans poured in one incessant stream for over an hour and a half, each loaded as high as it could be piled. They are loaded by men who are engaged for the purpose, who wear large white flowing coats. They are paid a penny per head for taking the meat off the vans and hanging - it on hooks in the stalls. They can earn from 5s to 7s per day, according to the amount of work to be done. There are some hundreds employed ; they are fine jolly fellows, and answered my questions promptly and cheerfully. I have often heard the remark, “ turn the best side to London,” but I never thoroughly understood it till I heard one man call out to two others who were stag, gering under a very heavy side of meat, “ this one for the front, Bill.” There were about six different rows, and the pick of the lot 'was hung in the front one. There was a large quantity of frozen mutton there, and I turned up the labels on some of it, and found it came from all the large exporting companies—the Southland Frozen Meat Com pan 3', the J. Gr Ward works, the Wellington company’s works, <fcc. I got hold of one of the largest wholesale men, and I asked him for his opinion about our frozen meat. He frankly told me that he preferred it to the very best English, as tliey could depend on it every time, “ while,” said he, slapping an English sheep on the back, “ yon have no guarantee that this meat may not go bad in 2-4 hours, as it often does.” Scot ch mutton is si ill pref erred, and brings the highest price in the market, but there can be no dbubt that the uniform excellence of our mutton is steadily bringing it to the front. One strange thing I noticed was tha*t in the rAail shops in London, Birmingham, and Glasgow, I did not see the worls “ New Zealand ” on a single piec3 of mutton. When I was in London there was quite a glut of English mutton in the market, the grass not having been so bare as it was then for the last 36 years. Several fine showers fell while I was there, and did a lot of good, but too late for the hay crop, which in many instances was not worth cutting.

I went through the egg, fowl, fish, and cheese markets, and saw some cheese from Roslyn Plains. Each market had its own division, and of coarse their own customers. After the delivery vans left, the place was

thronged with butchers’ order carts I should say that at 7 o’clock there must have been 3000 of them round that building. New Zealand mutton was fetching 4yd per lb while I was in London. The day after I arrived I saw salmon ticketed in the shops at 3s 6d per lb for smoked and 2s 6d for fresh, but the day I left it had dropped to Is per lb. I saw some magnificent fish there—over 3ft long, and of immense girth, and weighing from 401 b to 601 b. They were packed in ice, and the finely appointed shops, with fountains phiving, were worth g’oing a long way to see, and indeed formed attractions for not a few.