Is London decadent? Has the capital fallen from its old eminence as the home of great men born within its confines?
Such questions as these were raised at the conference of the f.cudon Teachers' Association, held in the Memorial Hall, Farringdon Street.
Mr. Walter Sharman, the new president, mentioned prominent men in religion, art, letters, etc., who were born in London, and asked where were their descendants.
"Tt seems as if the rainbow has ended," he said. Nowadays we Londoners have to get our policemen and firemen from the country. Except Will Crooks, all the Labour members of Parliament are countrymen.
"I cannot think of any leading statesman who is a Londoner by birth and training; nor of any great preacher who boasts of his London birth. Our master jour-rialists and the men who own the Press are not Londoners.
"Our great novelists, our musicians, the controllers of our big drapery establishments—all come from outside London.
"Why thi? dearth of noble natures? It is highly probable that during the last century there have been born in London many men and women, potentially great. They did not develop; they were dwarfed. They lived as. in a 200, and not in the open country. The shades of a prison house are closed about the children, eclipsing their trailing clouds of glory.
"London is a city of Moloch, for it devours its children."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.