Fow of us, I suppose, have not at some time attended a concert or lecture at St. James's Hall, It is with something of a sigh that we think of its entertainments in the' past tense, but last Saturday Drought them to a close, and, in order to "make way for a palatial hotel, the hall is cote down almost immediately, So many of the old landmarks are being swept away that in a few years' time a new guide. to London will be needed, The Piccadilly " is to be quite the most up-to-date of all the new hotels. 1t is to have frontages on all four sides, extending through to Regent Street and occupying the block bounded east and west by Air Street and Piccadilly Place. High-class shops will be found on the ground floor where it is hoped that visitors in the hotel may do their shopping. There are to be magnificent suites of rooms for wealthy patrons, and bedrooms—each, however, with its own bathroom en suite—for those of more modest purse. The question is, will it ever pay? Is there room, or are there patrons for all these palatial buildings. The Hotel Ritz in Piccadilly on the site of Walsingham House is going up very quickly and will, I should say, be open by the end of then we have the enlarged the Carlton, all favourites in the first rank, with dozens of others a little way behind them. "For two months in the year they are all exceedingly busy—but at other times, I know some of them could tell a very different tale.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.