LONDON THE GREAT Undoubtedly the Wonder of the Modern World.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 91, 28 February 1885, Page 4

LONDON THE GREAT Undoubtedly the Wonder of the Modern World.

Ihave frequently pointed out howabsolutely distinct London is from the English provinces in regard to the influences of trade depression, political excitement, or the sensational days of war. London is believed to be about the exact centre of the world. It is the heart of the British Empire. Every year it is easier for foreigners, Americans, colonials and provincials to get to London ; and every year the visitors and strangers pasting through her gates grow and increase. It is said that we have continually within our boundaries 2,000,000 foreigners from every quarter of the globe ; that we have more Jews than Palestine, 1 more Irish than Dublin, more Roman Catholics than Home, more Scotchmen than Edinburgh, more Welshmen than Cardiff and Swansea ; and we are all the time increasing our metropolitan attractions. We are practically rebuilding London. New theatres, new music halls, new hotels, new railway depots, new streets, meet you at every turn ; and the projects now before Parliamentary committees for future extensions and improvements are on the most tremendous scale. London is, undoubtedly, the wonder of the world. One day New York may be, or Chicago may be, or Boston may be. Philadelphia certainly rivals our greatest manufacturing cities. Washington is more beautiful than Cheltenham, and quite as luxurious as Bath. Brooklyn is beginning to rival our Surrey side of tbe'water, and everybody agrees that the United States is the coming great dominating commercial power of the future. Meanwhile, London is preeminently the great, " Great City," and, strange to bay, during the last year it might be called the most beautiful of cities, for oddly enough, we had a climate, for the first time for some years. The weather has been singularly bright, the skies high and clear, the atmosphere dry, and it km been generally noted that our autumn foliage has almost suggested some of the gay and imposing colours of the American fall and Indian summer. This very month of November, which stands, as it were, accursed in the calendar, has been full of climatic charm. Tom Hood's description, "No sun, no moon, no stars, no t'other side the way — -"November," has for many and many a year been applicable to this autumn period of London. This year, however, we have had bright sunshine, and followingonesnowstorm, the month of December has come in gloriously. The air is cold, it is true, but it is clear and bracing. The roads are dry and hard. At night in the suburbs you can hear the echo of horses' hoofs as they beat the macadam or avoocl, homeward bound from theatre, reception, or concert. In the daytime London is po busy that this common cry of bad trade seems quite out of place here. From ea<t to west the streets are lined with people pushing their way in two great streams, coming and going. This is the condition of the sidewalks. The streets i are lined with carriag s, cabs and waggons. Every day Kejjent-.^treet and Bond-street will show a deadlock. One day this week I counted five solid rows of vehicles ; two circulated towards the east, two towards the west, and in the centre a line of omnibuses and carts. Bore's pictures of London streets, move particularly his sketch of Ludgate Hill, are often said to be exaggerations of traffic. They are not. It is true he may sometimes have taken what would be called the busiest period of the day to fix his picture ; but none of them give you an idea of a fuller street than the reality in the great We.>t End thoroughfare which [ witnessed this week. You could have walked upon the tops of the carriages fir more eas ly than "Eliza" of "Uncle Tom's Cabin " upon the ice-blocks of the Ohio River. All this, no doubt, Beems paradoxical in connection with the reports of bad trade ; but in regard to London, as I have said before, it must be remembered that it is the centre of European enterprise, the market of the world, the loadstone of all great schemes, and the pawnshop of Chii^tendom. Everybody comes to L»oi\ciou *. provincials, foreigners, blacks, whites, peasants, poets, princes, merchants, inventors, millionaires, thieves, swindlers, philanthropists and sight-seers. Among our latest arrivals this week, by a Peninsular and Oriental steamer from Brindisi, were the first contingent of a great number of Japanese, male and female, who are to people a Japanese native village j which is to be opened shortly at Albert Gate, Hyde Park, under Royal and arfeto- 1 | cratic patronage. It is intended to make this a perfectly representative little Japanese town, with various industries, customs, and general life as in Japan. We had a successful and interesting little community of Chinese in the department of the Health Exhibition ; but this is a new departure, San Francisco has its Chinatown, with a thousand disabilities ; but London will have its Japanese village as a toy, and with all the charms and sweets, and without any of the filth and immorality.— Joseph Hatton in "Christian Union."