ADVICE FROM CHARLES DICKENS.
But in such a vast city, with such enormous traffic, nothing can prevent great loss of life and accidents innumerable from crossing the streets. The point mentioned above is only one of the busy parts of one street—the Strand—from another point, down by the Law Courts and Temple Bar, it is said that two hundred more or less mangled bodies are sent to the Charing Cross Hospital every year.
The present Charles Dickens, in his “Dictionary of London,” thinks it worth while to suggest that the only way to go from curb to curb is to make up your mind what course you will take, and then stick to it. London cabbies will thus divine your intentions. To change your mind while crossing is to confuse the cabmen, and cause you (so Dickens suggests) to make your return journey to America in the form of freight.
As all vehicles in London are driven to the left, keep to the left curb. I found this suggestion of Oakey Hall’s valuable: “As you leave a curb, look to the right; as you approach a curb, look to the left.”
LONDON HOTELS.
Until the year 1880 there was only one hotel in London that came up to the expectations of American travelers, which compared in size and appointments with American hotels of the first-class. This was the Langham Hotel in Portland place. When the Langham was built, nearly thirty years ago, and for several subsequent years, as the writer can attest, for he was a guest there in 1871, and has been a frequent visitor there since, the Langham was large enough to accommodate all American tourists in London.
This, however, has been greatly changed. Americans at that time merely passed through London; they took it as a sort of stepping-stone en route for Paris. In the days of the Second Empire, when Louis Napoleon wielded the sceptre, and Eugenie set the fashions for the civilized world, Americans flocked to Paris like so many sheep. Then it was said: “See Paris and die.” With the downfall of the empire and its accompanying glories our compatriots found Paris less attractive, and they discovered what everybody knows—that London is, in many respects, the most interesting city in the world. A presentation to Her Majesty, and hob-nobbing with the Prince of Wales, are the things now most desired, and to be in the very height of fashion, one must hire a London house for “the season,”—May, June and July.