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Cheapside, London

Cheapside, London image
Parent Issue
Day
29
Month
June
Year
1894
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Cheapside is a street, and a bnsy onc - the busiest, I dare say, of the whole world of streets. It is not long; it is not beautiful; it is not the resort of the ; fashionable; it is a business thorough' fare from first to last, and it has more ! history crammed into its short stretch [ than other great thoroughfares have in i their conibined long ones. Cheapside being not at the side of anything in the present era, but at the heart of all things, being in the heart of London, has a very important place in civic affairs. It is what they cali "an artery of traffic, " afiphalted into the bargain and affording iiigress aud exit as between the city and the regiems west. If it has a quarter of a mile to its length, it has as much as ir can legitimately claim, and even that includes a little slice at the easteru end called the "Poultry, " a title which signifies a local purpose in the picturesque past. Cheapside has at one end the Poultry, but this need not be cotmted as a separate entity. And at the Poultry end is the Mansion House, vrhere lives the lord mayor in gold lace state. Cheapside bunips into Threadneedle street, up to the steps of the Royal Exchange and against the walls of the Bank of England, institntions which are both useful and ornamental. At the other end of Cheapside there is a statue of Sir Robert Peel. But I venture to say that half the people -who pass there every day do not know whose statue it is, and of the other half an inconsiderable fraction will have some accurate notion as to who Sir Robert Peel really was, the balance being able to suggest only that he had "something to do with the pólice." Cheapside is to London what lower Broadway is to New York, between the postoffice and Wall street. Shops, shops, shops, insurance companies, great mercantile houses, restaurants, a church - Dick Whittingfcon's - that is to say, Bow church, where the bells still tingle - these are the stationary ingredients of Cheapside. Omnibuses, human beings, cabs and carriers' vans are the movable ones. Cheapside is like the channel of a tidal river - at oae time of the day the current sets in one direction, and at another time it ebbs to the opposite course. The street has rnany f unny little tributarles, with funny little ñames, Bread street, Friday street, Ironmonger lane and Old Jewry being some of these - narrow passages where in days more primitive than our own opposite neighbors leaned out of windows and shook hands across the street, while from the pavement they could scarcely have seen the sky, so closely did the overhanging stories approach to the roofs thereof. But there are no dwellings in Cheapside now, nor in the adjacent tributarles. The buildings are all for business purposes only. The old vogue of overhang has been long dispensed with, and a sprightly modern air is wom by the commercial architecture. One kind of commodity Cheapside has in more abundance than any other place on the whirling footstool - jewelry. It may not be the most sumptuous jewelry that ever vas made, it may not compare with the golden filigree work of Zamara, but it is jewelry nevertheless and of a good sort for the moderate classes. And there is so much of it that it overflows the contracted emporiums and fiows in cascades and Niagaras of watch chains, necklaces, fantastic guards, behmd the plate glass windows. It seems to be a trick of Cheapside's shops to display all their treasures to the preoccupied eyes of those who here maren in legions along the pavement. They pour their wares into their windows with a reckless profusión suggestive of the oriënt - that is to say, the oriënt you read about, not the oriënt which actually exists. The jewelry of Cheapside is maüily silver jewelry, and the radiance of the windows is the white radiance which tarnishes with such hapless result in the London fog. Cheapside is best seen between 9 and 10 in the morningor between 5 and 7 in the afternoon, either when everybody is coming to or going from his occupation. But all day long the street is crowded from end to end, so crowded that you cannot anywhere cross it in safety, except at the points where constables are stationed to regúlate the traffic. One of the odd features of Cheapside is the line of pedestrians who stand in either gutter, stringing along the eurbs and vending catchpenny toys. These merchants are an amusing lot in their way. Their harangues are endless and not wholly lacking in wit, althocgh their language is not altogether parKamentary. They sell the most wonderful assortment of ingenious toys that you can imagine, and every week or two they produce some new thing. Variety is the spice of their trade. The wonderful toys that can be bought of them for a penny allure all kinds of people who go cityward. I know men on the Stock Exchange who make it a point to buy every new penny toy that appears on Cheapside. Their collections have already the appearance of a lesser South Kensington museum or a glorified Lowther arcade. The penny toy venders may not pause in their vending. The watchful "bobby" keeps them on the move, a necessary precaution in this thick stream of traffic. One should see these penny toy men. Until he sees them he has not seen Cheapside, and until he has seen Cheapside he has not seen London. Besides the penny toys are the only

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News