London July — 189-.
MY DEAR JACK,—I tell you this London's a great place, and the more you see of it the more you want to see. There's only one thing that's disappointed me about it and that's Dukes and things like that. I thought Dukes went around in funny clothes with coroners on their heads and red velvet robes stirring up the dust on the sidewalks behind 'em but it ain't so. I've only seen one feller that looked real noble and he was standing on the back of a carriage on the place where American hackmen put trunks. I thought I'd spotted an Earl anyhow, but Pop said you could tell from his stockin's that he was only a Flunkey, and when I asked him if Flunkies were greater than Barons he said he guessed they were—anyhow they made other people sort of dwindle in their presence which Barons couldn't generally do. He wore red plush knee breeches, and to make him look older they'd put plaster all over his head. It's queer having a man like that getting a hitch behind on carriages and I asked Pop what they did it for and he said the Coachmen were always dropping their aitches and the Flunkey was put there so's he could get off easily and pick 'em up.
Yesterday we took a hansom and went out to see the Tower and it's a terrible place. It has motes running all around it that they fill up with water when enemies come. Pop says enemies always hates water and it gives people inside more chances of beating 'em. If they managed to get over it and scale the walls those inside could shove their ladders over backwards so that all those that fell on the land would get their backs broken and those that fell in the water would get drowned. It sort of all makes me wish that I'd lived in the old times. I'd like to have seen those old warriors trying to climb ladders in their cast-iron clothes and trying to swim ashore with tin trousers on.
Up in the Armory of this tower they've got nearly a million of these old suits and lances bigger than telegraph poles. It seems to me that when two armies dressed up in sheet-iron the way they used to be ran at each other with all their force it must have been worse than a railway collision when they met. I'd have thought they'd have telescoped like two Pullman cars, but Pop says they didn't. They just dented each other and fell back. I don't believe even our seventh regiment could have carried uniforms like that, because I don't think they weigh less than a ton, but it must have been safe. When a feller met an enemy he'd have to take an axe and crack him open like a nut before you could get at him. Maybe that's where the soldier's title of Kernel comes from. I asked Pop if it was and he got laughing so the man who was taking us around got mad and acted as if he'd put us out for ten cents. Pop told him what I'd said and he said what an extrordnery question.
Some of the iron uniforms had great spikes in the knees which must have been great when it came to shoving an enemy. Pop says that once a poor warrior with spiked-knee pants was so afraid he was going to get killed that he got down on his knees to pray before going into battle and got stuck so fast he couldn't go and his life was saved.
There's lots of other things in the tower too. They've got a block that people's heads used to be chopped off on. It has a nice comfortable little place for your neck scooped out of the middle of it, which shows that they tried to make death easy for the victims. I don't think I'd have liked it much just the same and I'm glad people can die other ways. There are screws there too to put on people's thumbs when they wouldn't confess that they'd done things. When a man said he was innocent they'd put these screws on his thumbs and give 'em a twist and ask him to guess again, and they'd keep him guessing till he remembered he was guilty after all. Then they'd take him out and chop his head off and begin on somebody else.
All the Queen's jewelry is kept in the tower in a cage like monkies. I spent about a half an hour looking at it. The diamonds are so big you'd think they were glass and somehow or other they don't dazzle you as much as you'd think. I think maybe they're not real and the Queen's just making a great big bluff with 'em, though they do say that once a man broke in here and got away with more than half of them, but couldn't get far because they shined so in the night that the police saw them through his clothes and arrested him before he'd gone a mile. The crown is kind of nice to look at. It reminds you of one of those small hall gas fixtures with lots of colored lights in 'em, and I've a notion that if it was lit up it would beat one of those colliderscope pictures all holler.
Then there were maces and great big solid gold porridge bowls for royal babies to eat their oat meal out of, till you really got tired of it all and felt as if you wouldn't mind looking at a tin cup or a pile of rusty iron tracks near a railroad for a little while. The Queen must be awful rich to own all these things, but after all I don't see what good it does her to have 'em if they've got to be locked up all the time. It's like owning a gold watch your Pop won't let you carry for fear you'll break it. I guess you've been there. I have—in fact, I am there. It's a stem-winder and came last Christmas.
Pop says that supper is ready, so I'll have to quit writing. If I have time to-morrow I'll tell you more about the tower and what I saw.
Yours affectionately
Bob.
The annual interscholastic indoor games of the Boston Athletic Association were held last Saturday—too late in the week to afford opportunity for detailed comment in this issue of the Department, which is consequently postponed until next week. These games practically close the indoor athletic season in and around Boston. This year that season has proved most interesting and profitable, and the standard of performance developed at school games has been considerably above the average.
Chauncy Hall School started the ball rolling early in February with an enthusiastic closed meeting. The best performances were done by Abrams, who won the 30-yard dash and the 35-yard hurdles; and Porter, who won the half-mile. This is Porter's particular distance, and he is not so strong in either the 600 or the 1000. Some good pole-vaulting was done, but only the younger boys were entered for it.