equally marvelous to English M. P.’s and foreign ladies and gentlemen of fortune or leisure who seek transcontinental scenes and comforts.
Merely “turning the leaves,” a phrase happily used as a heading for book notices by the author of “Kissing the Rod” in his World newspaper of London, will at once show any buyer of this volume what I have implied.
A. OAKEY HALL.
Lotos Club, January 21, 1892.
LONDON ON WHEELS.
ABOVE GROUND, ON THE GROUND, AND UNDER GROUND.
THE UNDER-GROUND LINES.
How the five millions of people in London “get about” to their daily avocations and homes is a mystery to those who have not made the subject a study. So I have gathered some information which will throw a little light on it.
Let me start out with the statement that besides the ten large terminal stations, like the Euston Square and the Midland, both in Euston Road, there are four hundred and thirty railway stations within the metropolis, and the under-ground lines alone carry annually one hundred and twenty-five millions of passengers. The underground roads have been in existence for more than a quarter of a century, and are found to answer the purpose admirably of relieving the over-ground traffic. They are convenient, cheap and comparatively quick; but decidedly unpleasant, if not positively unhealthy.
They now form a network of rails under the surface, and they have been a success from the first. They are a great engineering triumph, and may be said to have marked a new epoch in the history of London. The act permitting the tunneling was passed in 1853. Mr. John Fowler conducted the herculean labor, and underneath the streets of the busiest of cities, down where the soil was honeycombed with other works—gas pipes, water mains, drains and sewers—a railway line, costing upwards of one hundred and fifty thousand pounds per mile, was constructed almost without the knowledge of those above. For three years—from the spring of 1860 to the beginning of 1863—two thousand men, two hundred horses and fifty-eight engines were employed. When completed another difficulty presented itself, but was overcome by Mr. Fowler, who invented a locomotive which could be worked in the open air like an ordinary engine, but which, while in the tunnel, emits neither steam nor smoke, being so constructed as to be able to condense the one and consume the other.
And yet, after a long ride in the under-ground, you always emerge with a headache.
Of course the cars have to be lighted artificially, and they had not learned to use the electric light in them when I last was in London in October, 1891. Gas is a poor substitute in such a place. You are forced to read your newspaper in a dim light, and the gas consumes much of the oxygen which gets into the tunnel from the stations, and from openings en route, which are made for the purpose.
Yet you do not get about as quickly in the underground as you would imagine. To avoid obstructions, and for mechanical reasons, the road takes a circuitous route and you frequently must ride a long way around to go a comparatively short distance.
Millions of Londoners, who go direct from home to business, seldom get into an under-ground train. There are many over-ground lines built on brick arches which go to the suburbs, where rents are low; for every Englishman must have his own house, no matter how small, which he regards as his “castle.” These trains are quick and cheap, and you are blessed with ample light and good air—at least as good as you can get in foggy, smoky London.
On all roads, whether on trunk lines, on local, overground or underground lines, there are first, second and third-class cars, or “carriages,” as they call them. Even some omnibuses that ply from the trunk line stations also have compartments for different classes; your Englishman is very particular with whom he rides.
Occasionally you meet with unpleasant companions in third-class carriages of local or suburban lines, but on through trains, say between Liverpool and London, the third-class carriages are comfortable, and the travelers of a respectable class.
There is a great difference in the rates, and on a long journey it is worth consideration. First-class fare is almost double that of third-class. Second-class is neither one thing nor the other, and on some lines it has been abolished.
It is an old saying that only princes, Americans and fools travel first-class. I don’t care under which head they place me, so long as they place me in a first-class “carriage.” That it is more comfortable is incontrovertible, if you’ll pardon such a big word. I say this in the face of what John Stuart Mill said, that the only reason he rode third-class was because there was no fourth.
ELECTRIC LINES UNDER GROUND.
The Forum last summer printed a very good description from the pen of Simon Sterne, of the new electric under-ground railway in London, and the Sunday Sun last autumn had an elaborate article on the subject, which, with illustrations, occupied nearly a whole page.
It is a quick and convenient means of locomotion, and to accomplish it was a work of wonderful engineering skill for which the inventor, Mr. Peter Greathead, cannot be praised too highly; but the riding is by no means pleasant.
In a lift large enough to accommodate fifty passengers, you descend a distance of eighty feet below the surface—part of the road running beneath the bed of the river Thames. The cars are small and fairly well lighted, but they have an unpleasant vibration, and although the air is not noticeably impure, there is an uncanny feeling with the knowledge that you are burrowing, as it were, in the bowels of the earth.
The road, probably an experimental one, is only three miles long, extending south from “the monument” in the city. It has not, thus far, proved a success pecuniarily, the cost of construction being so great, although no land was purchased except for the stations.
HANSOMS AND FOUR-WHEELERS.
Street cars are not needed in the city. Nearly all London streets are in as good condition for driving as our Central Park roads. There are eight thousand hansoms, four thousand four-wheelers, and two thousand omnibuses, so that you are not obliged to walk on account of the absence of cars. The four-wheeled cabs, or “growlers,” as they term them, are dilapidated, uncomfortable vehicles, which lack new springs, and are dirty both inside and out. The horses and the drivers are old and superannuated; they have all seen better days in private carriages or hansom cabs. You never take a four-wheeler if you are alone, or if the party consists of only two persons. You must engage one if you have a trunk, but if you are going to catch a train or boat you had better allow a half hour’s margin.
The London cab service is the best and cheapest in the world. I say this, notwithstanding that I remember hiring a cab in Key West, in the Gulf of Mexico, for a dime. But such cabs and such horses! The rate in a hansom is sixpence per mile for one or two persons, no fare less than one shilling (twenty-five cents); by the hour, two-and-six (sixty-two cents).
HOW THEY DRIVE.
England is the only place I know of where they drive to the left. English drivers say that by sitting on the right and driving to the left, they can better watch the hubs of approaching wheels, and thus prevent