SEEING LONDON FROM THE OLD ENGLISH BUS
But there is one part of London in which all English-speaking people have a part—the London of history, of Dickens, Thackeray, Johnson, Shakespeare and those men whose names are living long after the money-lender and the broker are forgotten. A little way from the Bank and the bankers is the old Curiosity Shop, the Cheshire Cheese, the Cock, the Temple Courts, and hundreds of names familiar to every reader of English literature, and instead of being lonesome and oppressed by the weight of the millions of people and money, I felt that I had met old friends, and that Little Dorrit, or David Copperfield, or Samuel Johnson, or Pendennis, or Oliver Twist or some other acquaintance whom I knew very well was expected every minute. That is the great beauty of being an American in London, for all of the history and literature that have centered here is ours as well as our English cousins’.
The hansom cab and the old omnibus are disappearing before the taxi and the motor-bus. It is a shame, but the world will move on. Every Englishman or traveler remembers the London cab, with its two wheels and hood-shaped carriage, and the driver up behind. There are still a few, but the taxis are faster, and the London cab horse will soon be freed. So it is with the old bus, drawn by two good horses and driven by an expert driver who knew all of the history and romance of the buildings along the route, and who would impart said information with decorations and embellishments to the traveler with a sixpence. All of this so-called progress, the motor cars and the wider streets, are doubtless more efficient and more sanitary, but they are not near so picturesque or interesting. The taxicabs go through the London crowds, the jam of vehicles and the congestion of traffic at a speed that would not be tolerated in a small town in Kansas. The policeman stands on the corner and regulates the moving mass, but apparently there is no speed limit, only punishment for bad driving. The motor-driver who runs over a man is severely punished, and that makes him careful. The rule works well, but not quite so well as the one in Paris, which punishes the pedestrian who gets in the way of the motor car.
Next to the wages problem is the land problem in England. Three or four men own half the real estate in London. Their ancestors got it in a fairly legitimate way when it was outlying country, and now it is the heart of a great city. The English law of heredity keeps the estate together. The English land conditions are the worst I know of in any nation in the world. The rich old dukes who own so much of London cannot be pried loose from their holdings, and the actual residents cannot buy their homes or their business houses. The proprietor usually leases for 99 years, but every improvement goes to him eventually; he will do nothing himself, and the renter pays the taxes. On Piccadilly street, in the center of the fashionable residence and shop district, the Marquis of Landsup, or some such title, has a park of twenty acres which is surrounded by a high stone wall. It is a pretty park, but the owner’s family is there only a couple of months in the year when the weather is cold and the park is not usable. The rest of the time no one but servants and caretakers occupy that beautiful tract, with the city all around it. And thousands and tens of thousands of people are walking the streets or living in miserable tenements. I suspect I’d be a Socialist if I stayed long in London and thought much about such things as this. With all their brain and intellect the English statesmen have not solved the land problem in England, and they never will solve it until they upset the table.
It is a great thing to be able to speak the language and not have to rely so much on holding up your fingers and making faces. We have been for so many weeks among the Dutch and the French that it is a positive pleasure to just listen to the conversation around us and know that we can understand. A little knowledge of a foreign tongue leads to many mistakes. I heard a Frenchman in a London hotel giving an account of his day’s experience to an English lady. Among other things he said he went to a linen store and left an order for table linen, and added, “and I will have my entrails on it.” Of course he meant his initials, but he had been careless with his dictionary. And yet it is very hard for us to understand the ordinary London cab-driver or workman. His accent is so different that it is almost like another language. And even an educated Englishman will give you a direction like this: “Go to the next turning on the left, bear a bit to the right until you get to the top of the street.” Which means in American go to the next corner, turn to the left, then a little to the right to the end of the street. I never can understand why the English people generally murder their language as they do. But perhaps I am like the little American girl I met in Germany. She had learned German at home, and I asked her how she got along in Berlin. “Not very well,” she said, “they talk such bad German.”