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CHAPTER IX.

LONDON: GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL THINGS.

HEART OF ENGLAND - LEAMINGTON·

WARWICKSHIRE

OXFORD-WISDOM CROWNS WASTING STONE-ON TO
LONDON-SIXTY-THREE MILES IN SEVENTY-FIVE MIN-
UTES SUBURBS OF THE GREAT CITY-PADDINGTON'S
GREAT STATION-HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT-CHAMBER
OF COMMONS-MUSIC WEDDED TO TIME-SIR JOHN
PURLESTON-HOUSE OF LORDS-WESTMINSTER ABBEY
-COUSINS FOUND-TRAFALGAR SQUARE-NATIONAL

ART GALLERY

THE "WILD WEST" BLANKETED INDIANS UNDER STARS AND STRIPES IN THE WORLD'S LARGEST CITY-AWFUL LIGHTNING AND THUNDERBUFFALO BILL, WHILE GALLOPING, SHATTERS GLITTERING BALLS AMID LIGHTNING AND FALLING RAIN

"BROTHER JONATHAN" AND "JOHNNY BULL" CONTENDING AMID CLASHING ELEMENTS, ETC.

It would take too many columns now to tell how I traveled down through the green, shady heart of old England, to the world's metropolis, but I will try to do so later. At bright, beautiful Leamington I found a cousin, and we visited wonderful Warwick, and quaint, old Coventry, and dear, cool, green, "Stratford-on-Avon." Pleasant days were those!

Enroute for London, I stopped at old Oxford, the city of ancient colleges, where Wisdom lifts up her

voice from the top of many a gray stone column, spire and dome; where the tooth of Time has eaten deep furrows in hard stone,―stone and granite created by the "ancient of days," which skillful, pains-taking and honest men chiseled and laid up hundreds of years ago. I asked a man near the station, "What do you do here?" and he answered, "We make Parsons." After I had walked around and through a score of great, gray, old colleges, with their chimes, clocks, columns, arcades, porticos, courts, libraries, and halls of art, learning, antiquities, and halls for dining, I saw plainly the character of the city, and concluded there was but one Oxford on earth. They pointed out a place in the street where men had been burned, ages ago, for their religious faith.

How we

Sometime I must try to tell you how I went from Oxford to London that pleasant afternoon. galloped, how we rushed, how we whizzed the sixtythree miles in seventy-five minutes. How we leaped green-banked canals and willowed rivers, and darted through broad meadows, where fat cattle and sheep lay content; through fine fields of wheat, barley, oats, peas and beans; by great towns and smoky cities, so rapidly that we could not read the boldly painted name of the station; on by the hedges, which look like smooth ribbons of satin; on through regions of brick kilns.

At length we come where beautiful mansions stand on shady hills, and in sunny vales, and now long rows of neat, new tenements, stand like an army speaking for peace and prosperity. A few miles farther, and

our noble engine draws us into the great railway station at Paddington, not many miles from the heart of great London.

The station is a great building of stone, with iron and glass roof, with room for many trains to come and go at once. Just read the signs: "In," "Out," "Booking Office," "Cloak Room," "Left Luggage," "Refreshments," "This Way Out," "Gentlemen," "General Waiting Room," "First Class Ticket Office," "Second Class Ticket Office," "Ladies' First Class Waiting Room," "Station Master's Office," "Cross the Lines by the Subway," etc. Similar rooms and offices are on each side, and the great stone platforms are about level with the car doors, which are all along the side of the train, and fifty people may at once step into the fifty open doors. The doors are marked in plain letters, "First," "Second," "Third," denoting the class, and you enter the class for which you have a ticket. It is near 5 o'clock, and I have a ticket to the Speaker's gallery in the House of Parliament. So I leave my largest bag at the cloak-room, take a receipt on paper, pay two-pence, (four cents.) Looking around, I find I am a good way from the House of Parliament, and am told to take the under-ground line to Westminster Bridge.

I wend my way down under-ground, pay two or three pence, and away we go into the dark caverns under the busy and crowded streets of the old city. Trains flash by, and we stop now and then at a station; a shrill whistle, in the mouth of the master, sounds, and away we go. Now, on the lamp-globes in the

station, I read, "Westminster Bridge." I go out and pass upward through a gate-way, and give up my ticket, and come out upon the pavements crowded with people going to and fro, while the streets are full of cabs, carriages, omnibuses, etc. Handsomely uniformed policemen stand at the corners to keep order and help pedestrians to cross the streets. Right in front, across the street, stands a gray stone building of vast extent and graceful proportions. In the massive and lofty tower is the largest clock-face I ever saw, thirty feet across it, and, as it is six o'clock, I hear sweet music fall out of the sky, and the bells chime, one, two, three, four; one, two, three, four; four times. over, and then we hear six loud, soft tolls of the bell. This most magnificent building is the House of Parliament, where England's law-makers, born and elected, assemble to transact business of state. It stands on the banks of the famous Thames (temz), where historical things have had birth for two thousand years. And here is Westminster Bridge, across the Thames, a grand and substantial structure. There are many bridges over the Thames, and strong stone and iron ones they are, too. They are free, and broad, and would, probably, bear up a million tons. This fine building is hundreds of feet long, and would require about a half mile walk to go around it. The towers are lofty and very elaborate. Having a pass, which cousin Edward and Mr. Nicholson secured for me, through their member for Whitby, I enter the House of Commons. I enter a great doorway, and go through a hall, and up a flight of broad steps, into another great, lofty

hall, where the light falls like lovely angels through colored glass. Almost every step is guarded by doorkeepers and guards, who ask your business. In this large hall stand marble likenesses of England's great men on massive pedestals. Going up more steps, I enter a great circular hall, with lofty and finely ornamented ceiling, and the columns surrounding it have niches, one above the other, in which stand, say, sixty statues of famous people of the past. Here stand many doorkeepers in fine uniforms, some of them busy examining cards and letters. A crowd are waiting to go into the Chamber of Commons, which is in session. We, or some of us, pass the guards and go along another hall, where, in large panels, are painted some of the important events of English history. Then up a stairway, and we sit down on a well-cushioned seat in the Speaker's Gallery, and gaze down on a finely furnished room of say 60x90 feet. The chief points I remember are the handsome and elaborate carvings in dark, old oak, and the fine, soft light coming down through glass in the ceiling from gas jets. The speaker and his associates wore long, white wigs. I was impressed with the slow, studied, business-like words and delivery of the speakers,-not much in the manner, but much in the words. I could not hear all that was said, yet I was glad to hear they were discussing safety-lamps, and were interested in the subject of preserving the life of the poor laboring man.

After an hour or two I went out, and as I was entering a clean, light restaurant-room, a pleasant-looking woman, dressed neatly in black, asked me to take her

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