A CITY OF LIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 34, 3 August 1911, Page 2

A CITY OF LIGHT.

CORONATION CROWDS. AMAZING SCENES IN LONDON ] STREETS. London, June 23. Though the police precautions and newspaper cautions scared away hundreds of thousands who might have made London their objective this Coronation week, the night scenes witnessed on the processional routes would have persuad- , ed the unversed that all the world had tried to crowd itself into the city and the West End. Last night there were no streets beand 'llydi? Park; Yfshey jvert liiddert' tthd ; lost under the black throng 'of' liuiiianity. ■ ; London has not, before or since Mafekirig night, seen such multitudes of people. In every street where there are illuminations they stood packed topractically motionless. It as no exaggeration to say that last night it took'hours for the pedestrian—ftlHvehicular traffic,was stopped about 7 p.m.— to Wi'iggle-ahd weave his way from the Strand to the bank, a distance you may , compass easily afoot in ordinary times l in 20 minutes. And simply to cross many streets meant a tortuous and tedious six-inches-at-a-time quarter of an hour's progress. Thousands of people gave up the attempt to see the illuminations in Pall Mall and Piccadilly and at the Mansion House, and escaped by side streets and alleys, but these defections made; no appreciable difference to the dignity of the masses of humanity. Pall Mall was packed from side to side, in St. James street the mass was still more dense and Piccadilly itself was practically impassable. But the climax to everything and the goal of everybody seemed to be the spacious area between the Mansion House, the Bank of England and the Royai Exchange, where these ancient landmarks ably assisted by the London, Liverpool and Globe Assurance Company, Smith's Bank and minor corporations made night beautiful. Those who struggled and crawled at a quarter-of-a-mile-an-hour pace to this sight-seers' mecca were well rewarded. Beautiful as are the illuminations in the West End they cannot compare with those in this city area. Every building abutting thereon is outlined and festooned with myriads or colored lights and decked with hangings of crimson and blue and gold. The Bank of England in itself is a sight worth all one's trouble to get near this, the very heart of the City of London. The squab grey black building is at night a thing of beauty. Words cannot paint the effect of the multitude of colored electric bulbs, set in a setting of silver leaves, which outline its entire face and j twine spirally round the classic pillars I of its facade, on which great oval "G's" j and "M's" in scarlet glass shine out in | dazzling radiance. And standing high I above all are ten great electric torches which take in all the hues of the rainbow as you see them from different j angles. People murmur with admiration | at the rather stereotyped though beautiful illumination of the Mansion House -and the great buildings adjacent, but they stand gaping at the bank, dazed with admiration.. It is here that the density of the crowd reaches the limit. The great open space these last three nights has been packed with humanity thicker even than on Mafeking night. After 9. o'clock it has been a physical impossibility to force one's way from one side to the other. Once you get into the crowd there ybu have to stop and any movement you make has to be in the direction of the flow of the human stream. The writer' was last night an unwilling prisoner in the centre of the crowd for fully two hours. In the direction of St. Paul's and along Fleet street and the Strand the throng of humanity was less dense, but not much. Looking down Ludgate Hill -from the steps of St. Paul's the sight was' truly extraordinary. As far as the eye could reach nothing was to be seen 'in the road but a closely-packed multitude, their heads and upturned faces forming under the blaze of a million lights a weird mosaic. The crowds throughout have been very good-humored, and though there were exuberant parties who found joy in singing, shouting and making strange noises upon primitive instruments, the crowds have been for the most part entirely orderly. ' The crowds continued large till about 12.30 a.m., but at this hour it had been decreed by police regulations that all I illuminations should be extinguished, and rapidly thereafter the streets emptied of j people.