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Probably no feature of London is so familiar in the metropolis, or so widely known by name in the provinces, as the famous clock of the Houses of Parliament. No visitor to London would think of returning home without having seen “Big Ben” and heard him chiming the quarters and booming out the hour. During the summer season hundreds of thousands of strangers, not only from the provinces, but from far-off lands, gaze up at his massive, honest face, proud and delighted to have made the acquaintance of so great a London celebrity. It is the largest clock in the world. Each of the four dials, there being one for each point of the compass, is of white enamelled glass and 23 feet in diameter. The minute marks on the dial look as if they were close together. They are 14 inches apart. The numerals are two feet long. The minute hand is 14 feet, and the hour hand six feet. To wind the clock takes about five hours. The time is regulated by electric communication with Greenwich Observatory.
The clock has a large bell to toll the hours and four smaller ones to chime the quarters. The large bell is called “Big Ben,” after Sir Benjamin Hall, who was First Commissioner of Works when the Clock Tower was erected. It weighs 13½ tons. Twenty men could stand under it. For a clapper it has a piece of iron 2 feet long, 12 inches in diameter, and weighing 12 cwt. No wonder, then, that there are few things more impressive than “Big Ben” tolling the hour of twelve, in his slow, measured and solemn tones, especially at midnight, when the roar of London is hushed in slumber. And what is said by the full chime of bells before the striking of each hour? Here is the verse, simple and beautiful, to which the chime—a run of notes from the accompaniment to “I know that my Redeemer liveth” in Handel’s Messiah—is set:
Lord, through this hour
Be Thou our guide,
That by Thy Power
No foot may slide.
During the session of Parliament a brilliant steady light, blazing from a lantern over “Big Ben,” may be seen at night from most parts of London. It indicates that the House of Commons is sitting. So long as the representatives of the people are in conclave, the light flashes its white flame through the darkness. It vanishes the moment the House rises. A wire runs from the lantern down to a room under the floor of the House of Commons, and when the question, “That this House do now adjourn” is agreed to, a man stationed below pulls a switch, which instantly extinguishes the light. When this beacon was first set on high, and for many years after, it shone only towards the west, for it was thought unlikely than an M.P. would dwell in, or even visit, any other quarter of the town. But with the extension of the franchise Parliament became democratized, and a new lantern was provided which sheds its beams in the direction of Peckham as well as of Pall Mall. The light should be regarded by all who see it as a sacred symbol of the fire of liberty, law and justice ever burning in the House of Commons. Another comparatively recent innovation is the flying of the Union Jack from the iron flagstaff, 64 feet high, which tops the 336 feet of the Victoria Tower, on days that Parliament is sitting. Only the Royal Standard was seen, before that, on the rare occasions that Queen Victoria came to open Parliament in person. Small as the Union Jack seems to the upturned gaze of persons in the streets, it is of remarkable dimensions, being 60 feet long and 45 feet wide. I saw one day the flag of another country flying for the first time side by side with the Union Jack over the Victoria Tower. It was the Stars and Stripes. The day was April 20, 1917—the day on which the United States joined France, Italy and England in the War against Germany.