LONDON.
Entering London—The Great City Crowded—Six Million Five Hundred
Thousand People Together—Lost in London—A Human Niagara—A Policeman
and a Lockup—The Jubilee and the Golden Wedding—”God Save the
Queen.” and God Save the People—Amid England’s Shouts and Ireland’s
Groans Heard.
I ENTER London for the first time on Saturday at 8 P.M. It is with
the greatest difficulty that I obtain lodging. I am turned away from
several hotels, boarding-houses, and private homes. I can not get even
a cot, or blankets, to make a pallet on the floor. I continue to press
my suit, however, and finally secure good accommodations with a private
family.
Why all this difficulty? It arises from the fact that this is the week
set apart for London and the surrounding country to celebrate the
Queen’s Jubilee, this being the fiftieth year of her reign. For some
days the streets have been absolutely crowded with visitors. It is said
that there are more people here now than ever before. It is a difficult
matter, I am sure, for one who has never been here to realize what this
means.
London occupies a good part of four counties, covering an area of one
hundred and twenty-five square miles. This area is traversed by 7,400
streets which, if laid end to end, would form a great thoroughfare,
eighty feet wide, reaching from London to New York. And yet these
streets are far too few, too narrow, and too short, to accommodate the
six and a half millions of people who are now crowded into the city
to attend the Jubilee. There are, in London, more Scotchmen than in
Edinburgh; more Irish than in Dublin; more Jews than in Palestine;
more Catholics than in Rome. There are more people in London to-day
than live in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Cincinnati,
Louisville, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City and San Francisco all
combined. There are more than half as many people here as live in
Mexico, and more than one-tenth as many as inhabit the whole of the
United States of America.
Monday morning, at ten o’clock, I started out, like Bayard Taylor,
with the determination to lose myself in this great city, and I hope
that it will not be considered egotistic in me to say that I was
eminently successful. Indeed, I have never been more successful in
any of my undertakings than in the effort to lose myself in London. I
wandered through the streets for hours and hours, going up and down,
to the right and left, across, zigzag, and every other way, paying no
attention whatever to the direction in which I was going, or to the
distance that I had traveled. Johnson and I were soon separated from
each other. I was alone, all alone! Who can describe that lonely and
woe-begone feeling which comes over one as he, for the first time,
winds his way through the great crowd that constantly throngs the
streets of the world’s metropolis! A lonely, desolate, miserable, and
depressing feeling takes hold of your spirit. You cannot shake it off.
After walking until your weary limbs can scarcely support you, you
sit down upon some curb-stone, or door-step, to rest, to meditate, to
dream. Your head turns dizzy as you sit there and watch that human
Niagara dashing by you! In vain, you scan the care-worn faces of the
passers-by for a familiar countenance. You can only comfort yourself
with this consoling thought: “I know as many of them as they do of me.”
Ah! who knows—who can know—that mixed multitude? Who can tell whether
courage or cowardice, whether hope or fear, whether virtue or vice,
whether joy or sorrow, whether peace or strife, most rules the heart?
One man in the crowd continually thinks of the low, the mean, the vile,
and is himself corrupt and vicious. Another has pure thoughts and lofty
aspirations; he has an eye for the beautiful; he loves the true, and
longs to be good.
Here is a demon of darkness, whose heart is black with the crimes
of last night—yea, with the accumulated crimes of a life-time. His
conscience is dead. He would now like to stifle the courage, to
throttle the hope, and stab the virtue of others. There is a good
Samaritan whose acts are acts of kindness, and whose deeds are deeds of
charity. He is in the world, but not of the world. He is a stranger.
He is a pilgrim. His citizenship is in Heaven!
For several hours I watched the passing throng, and read their
thoughts as best I could. At length I came to myself. I felt as if I
had been dreaming. I found that it was seven o’clock in the evening.
I discovered that I was lost! I did not know where I was. I scarcely
knew who I was, or whence I came. I had forgotten the name and place
of my room. I walked on, going I knew not where. The sun set in the
east. Water ran up stream. I found that I had not been wise, but
otherwise. My pockets had been searched. My money-purse was gone;
fortunately, however, it was almost empty. I had very little small
change, and nothing to make it out of. Eight o’clock came, then eight
thirty—things were getting desperate! I sought a policeman, and asked
him to help me find myself. Without any reluctance whatever, he took
charge of me. He told me to follow him. I did so; and, just as the
clock struck ten, the key turned, I heard the bolt slam, and found
myself locked for the night within—my own room. This ended my first
day on the streets of London.
Tuesday is the Jubilee Day, the day of the Golden Wedding, the day when
Queen Victoria and her people are to be married a second time, after
having lived together for fifty years as sovereign and subjects. God
favors us with what the people here call “Queen’s weather,” a perfect
day. The morning is bright, the sky cloudless; the air is pure, and the
breeze refreshing. Johnson and I leave home early, and reach Trafalgar
square before seven o’clock in order to secure a good position from
which to see what promises to be one of the greatest royal processions
ever witnessed. Although we are on the scene early, thousands and tens
of thousands of people have preceded us. Some came at two o’clock in
the morning that they might secure favorable positions. Many paid from
ten to one hundred dollars for seats. Fortune smiles on Johnson and me.
We obtain good vantage-ground, the only charge being “long standing.”
By nine o’clock, the route along which the procession is to pass is
the most thickly populated part of the globe that I have yet seen.
The broad sidewalks and streets are a solid mass of humanity. The
large parks, sometimes covering acres, are filled with men, women and
children, packed to suffocation. The streets, steps, verandas, windows,
and housetops are all filled. At 9:30, all are driven out of the
streets proper, crowded back on the sidewalks, into the lanes, by-ways,
open squares, and public parks along the route. Persons on the opposite
sidewalks face each other. Just in front of the crowd, close back to
the curb-stone on either side, stands a line of large, able-bodied
policemen, shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow, the two lines facing
each other.
In front of the police force, is a line of armed infantry, standing at
“attention,” with fixed bayonets. Still in front of these, is stationed
a line of cavalrymen, all splendidly dressed and well mounted. Each has
a gun and a pistol buckled to his saddle, and a glittering sabre in his
hand. Thus the whole route, extending for miles and miles, is flanked
on either side by three columns of armed men. Buntings of every color,
and the flags of all nations, are fluttering in the breeze. The richest
floral designs that art can fashion, or that money can purchase, adorn
the way. The route is lined from end to end with wealth, beauty, and
chivalry of the English Isles. See! Far in the distance the royal
trumpeters are coming, on black chargers, flourishing their golden
trumpets, and shouting to the expectant multitude, “The Queen is
coming!” The shout is taken up and repeated by a thousand times a
thousand voices: “The Queen is coming! The Queen is coming!” The
enthusiastic cries come rolling down the avenue like waves on the
ocean. It strikes the fibres of every heart. The electric current
flashes along the whole line—every man feels the shock. The welkin
rings with deafening cheers.
[Illustration: CHAPEL OF HENRY VII, WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]
The procession itself defies description. It consists of some fifty or
sixty regal carriages all filled with royal personages—kings, queens,
and crown princes. Each carriage is drawn by four—some of them by
eight—large horses wearing silver-mounted harness. Each carriage is
attended by thirty life-guards, well mounted, and armed to the teeth.
The Queen’s escort consists of thirty royal princes. The procession
passes on to Westminster Abbey, and there, in the presence of the
congregated royalty of earth, Victoria is crowned Queen of England and
of India, after having been fifty years a sovereign.
Every civilized nation under heaven has contributed to the pageantry
of this occasion. For the last half century, Victoria has been weaving
for herself a crown which the nations of the earth do this day rejoice
to place upon her brow. She has magnified her office. Is she jealous?
it is of her honor. Is she ambitious? it is for the glory of her
country. Is she proud? it is of what her people have accomplished. Is
she mighty? it is to succor the oppressed. She is exalted, yet humble;
dignified, yet courteous; a sovereign, yet a willing subject of the
lowly Nazarene. Elizabeth is called England’s greatest queen; but
Victoria is, unquestionably, her best. And,
“Howe’er it be, it seems to me
’Tis only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.”
The Victorian era will be known to posterity as “the golden period
of English history.” Victoria has been a mother to her children and
a benefactor to her people. She has developed her country, advanced
the arts and sciences, and founded hospitals and asylums. May the good
Queen live long to rule righteously, to glorify motherhood, and adorn
her palace with Christian virtues. And may the angel of peace long
guard her realms!
[Illustration: NELSON’S MONUMENT.]