It used. to be said of Londoners that the thing they knew least of was their own city. No trae Londoner for the most urgent business, to the Tower, the Charterhouse, Madame Tussand's, Billingsgate, or the Charing Cross Hotel, Without the patronage of foreigners and country visitors these respectable establishments might have ceased to be. But of Into years, concurrently with or perhaps arising' from the taste for old china, Sheffield plate and ¢ fin trestles, there has been a great "boom" in London, New books are constantly written about it; hus bands and wives explore it on Saturday afternoons instead of going to matinee and the L. C. C. mark the houses of its famous dead with mural tablets.
As the explorers soon found there ix not one tut many Londons, differing Igss in appearance than in atmosphere, which derives from the nice graduations in the social standing of the occupants, yet_to the expert eye as wide apart fas Bethnal Green is from St. James' Square. And of all the Londons _none is more completely distinct than West minster. In spite of the crowding of her neighbours she remains as much aloof from them, both in her beauty and (,00 herald and S. C. & C. Gazette, Jur 26, 1907 ey as iF there were till open Tetwoen herself and Beauty indeed has Westminster far beyond what all the other Londons. can show—her Houses of Parliament, her Abley, her famous cloisters, her Queen Anne houses with the oak pannel massive porticoes of carved oak. she has too in plenty, as you Sunday evening by adventuring into Tniton Street, Great Peter Street or Strutton's Ground.—The closeness of the contrast. is amazing when you re-riber that the other side of th mean streets ix made up of the majestis mansions of Victoria Street and the decorous homes of dignitaries of the Church and the *relicts" of defunct chops and deans. That, however, is of very charm of Westminster, as her any that invests even her samy! side glamour wholly de a certain ied to. ordinary For the beginning iter dates back to the sane wh she once afforded to engi from justice. Cut als ran to her from all quarters and, with characteristic inxratitnde, pursued their wicked ways within her borders, The colony leeame appropriately known as The Devi Acre"; and half a century ago, ax a writer Murray's Monthly Review" reminds us, the police, even strong parties, could not venture to it, Here were houses in which young pickpockets were taught their trade upon the notorious Doll; houses where beggars were made mp to re semble scarred" and maimed heroes and navy; bear-bai and rat killing ied a sorry livelihoal: by standing up to allow themselves: to be punched the face for sixpence or a shilling 'a smite: and dens of counterfeit coiners protected by such devices of trap-doors, secret passages, and double staircases the wildest writer of "shilling shockers"
rented. that they really must not expect to lo on Sunday evenings at eight k in order to catch the people coming aut of church, and relieve: them of watches and pocket handkerchiefs, Even more successful was Miss Ade line Cooper, ever to be remembered in connexion with Westminster's regenesis. When she first began to teach ins small house she had taken in Pye Street, she used to hear the thieves next. door ily breaking up the silver of the previous night's robberies. Miss Cooper got money and interested many people in the Devil's Acre. Her own personality was the most powerful agent of and she could walk alone through places where a dozen strong men would not have ventured. She introduced schools, temperance societies, and the fist working men's club that had been heard of. When she died in 1888 the hardest part of Westminster's conversion hal been effected—and that without the drastic method once suggested by an old woman of Pye Street for doing away with the poor and reprobate, that the authorities should dig a hole and bary "em all TOO MUCH REFORM, No doubt broad streets and nice clean model dwellings are better than slams crazy rookeries. Yet one could wish that the hand of reformers were guided with a little more discretion, for in their zeal they are destroying everywhere much that was as harmless as it was picturesque, Great College Street, Westu ne of the most beautiful London, is. fast losing its charm, The adjoining streets about Smith Square are doomed. Paradise Row, Chelsea, gone with all ite memories of the dayx of Charles I. The very site Holywell Street is unrecognizable. When we who have wandered in search of fortune return Home, full of fond memories, to do our own exploring, it may be to find that there is no London left to discover.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.