Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1918 — The American In London [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The American In London

GOOD Americans, when they die, go to Paris, so it is alleged. While they are alive many of them are content to spend a considerable part of their time In London. They cannot help it, for, according to Emerson, the English have made London “such a city that almost every active man, in any nation, finds himself, at one time or anforced to visit it’ l In normal times a census of the strangers within our gates would disclose a large proportion from the other side of the Atlantic, says Herbert W. Horwlll in Country Life. The West End shopkeeper knows this well, as a scrutiny of his windows will show. He has even gone so far in catering to the taste of the American visitor as to establish in our midst that un-English institution, the soda fountain. Tailors, tobacconists, “dry goods” merchants — all combine to confirm the verdict that London is “the best and cheapest shopping-place in the world.” No doubt, most of the Americans who find their way to this city are “transients,” but some who arrive with the intention of, making only a brief sojourn remain here for the rest of their days. One remembers, for instance, the Chicago millionaire who took up his permanent abode in a London elub and whose decease gave Sir William Harcourt’s Death Duties so magnificent a send-off. What do these Americans come out for to see? The answer is obvious — what they have no chance of seeing at home. To the citizens of a country where every church over 100 years old is regarded as an antiquity, and where the Washington sightseer, on. his trip to George Washington’s home, is told that he is “now approaching the ancient city of Alexandria” (dating from A. D. 1748), the treasury of historic material provided by London is of almost inexhaustible interest In the older parts of the city nearly every step brings them imb touch with some building whose associations recall a period anterior to the Declaration of Independence. To say nothing of the remains of the Roman wall, there are the Tower of London —that “sweet boon,” as Artemus Ward described it —Westminster Abbey and Hall, the Temple, St Paul’s, and old churches and houses innumerable.

Hit Literary Pilgrimages. A conspicuous characteristic of the American visitor is his enthusiasm for literary pilgrimages. The average Englishman, Londoner or provincial, exhibits nothing like the same zeal in tracking the footprints of our great writers. St Giles’, Cripplegate, the burial place of John Milton, is probably visited by ten Americans for every one Englishman. How many Englishmen could tell you where Oliver Goldsmith was buried? Thousands of American visitors have stood reverently beside the grave. Memories of'Doctor Johnson are another powerful magnet In this connection a good story is told of how the American enthusiast is sometimes victimized by his fellowcountrymen. Mr. George Ade was one day sitting in the “Cheshire Cheese” over a beefsteak pudding and a mug of ale, when there entered a Chicago woman, Boswell in hand. She had been told- that the great man’s autograph could still be seen penciled on one of the walls. The waiters declared they had never seen it but with her dauntless Chicago spirit she began a long search upstairs and down. While she was upstairs a warm glow of benevolence rose in Ade’s heart, add, tak-; Ing a pencil from his pocket, he wrote ! with quaint eighteenth century flourishes on the wall behind him “Sam > Johnson.” On her return t from upstairs the visitor promptly spotted the autograph and was overjoyed. “Is it not amazing,” remarked Mr. Ade in telling the story, “how much happiness we can give to others by -these little acts of kindness?” To the tourist from overseas even the great figures at the Victorian era wear a halo of stmeity. Carlyle’s house Is a constant center of attraction. Some

years ago an Englishman in America, happening* to enter into conversation with a negro schoolteacher, learned that one of the keenest desires of her life was to see London, and that she especially wanted to visit every place that was connected with the characters in Dickens. Place* of Special Interest Many Americans, again, spend Industrious days in hunting up buildings that have some historic connection vdth the foundation and early development of their own communities. There is a long list of churches where eminent Americans of the colonial period were baptised: William Penn, at All Hallows, Barking; Roger Williams at St Sepulchere’s; Calvert, the founder of Maryland, at St Giles-in-the-Fields; General Oglethorpe, the founder of Georgia, at Martln’s-ln-the-Flelds; and John Harvard at St Saviour’s Cathedral, Southwark, where the incident is now commemorated by a memorial window. St Ethelburga’s is of interest as the church where Henry Hud-* son and his crew are reported to have made Their last communion the night before they sailed. The house in Newman street occupied by Benjamin West may be quoted as an example of many buildings whose associations appeal to American visitors almost exclusively. It would be quite a mistake, however, to suppose that to the American London serves no other purpose than to make more vivid what he has learned at school. However diligent he may be In following up its historical and literary associations, he finds time to sample its lighter side —its theaters and other entertainments, and its social festivities, in so far as he has access to them. Even that ornament of the American-learned world, Dr. Andrew D. White, the late president of Cornell university, records In his autobiography how, after working In th British museum, he found refreshment In an evening at Maskelyne and Cooke's “great temple of jugglery.” Yet, after all, as Oliver Wendell Holmes puts IL “the great sight is London.” In the old days, before the era of motor traffic, nothing could beat the top of a horse-drawn ’bus as a means of regaling oneself with the ever-chang-ing panorama of the streets, and, although the petrol engine has banished the more leisurely progress of that time, an outside seat on a ’bus remains unrivaled as a point from which to observe the everyday life of the city. The streets themselves impress an American with their tidiness. Their paving Is kept in good repair, and they are free from, the litter that disfigures important thoroughfares in New York. Some of the Exceptions.

As a rule, the American in London means-to have a good time, and gets it There are, of course, exceptions—people who lack the gifts of sympathy and imagination, and who accordingly miss all that is of unique interest in the scenes they visit A man of this type was once, it is said, standing on the Terrace of the House of Commons and bragging about the glories of some river in his own state. It was a much finer river than, the Thames—cleaner, wider, and so on. John Burns happened to be close by and could not stand it. “Do you know, sir,” he broke in, “what that brown river is? It’s liquid history.” But that narrow-mind-ed provincialism is not the prevailing mental attitude of cultivated Americans. On the contrary, the impact of London upon them would more faithfully be expressed by the passage in which James Russell Lowell, under a different figure, emphasized that sense of historic continuity which appealed so strongly to John Burns. “One thing about' London,” he said, “impresses me beyond any other sound I have ever heard, and that is the low unceasing roar one hears, alwavs in. the air; it is not a mere accident, like a tempest or a cataract, bjrtlf Is Impressive, because it always indicates human win, and impulse, and conscious movement; and I confess that when I hear it I almost feel as If I were lietening to the roaring loom of time.*

The Tower Bridge, London.