All those hum's and ha's mean so
many pence from the pockets of you, reader, and me.
THE NAMING OF STREETS
`The Rebuilding of London' proceeds ruthlessly apace. The humble old
houses that dare not scrape the sky are being duly punished for their
timidity. Down they come; and in their place are shot up new
tenements, quick and high as rockets. And the little old streets, so
narrow and exclusive, so shy and crooked--we are making an example of
them, too. We lose our way in them, do we?--we whose time is money.
Our omnibuses can't trundle through them, can't they? Very well, then.
Down with them! We have no use for them. This is the age of `noble
arteries.'
`The Rebuilding of London' is a source of much pride and pleasure to
most of London's citizens, especially to them who are county
councillors, builders, contractors, navvies, glaziers, decorators, and
so forth. There is but a tiny residue of persons who do not swell and
sparkle. And of these glum bystanders at the carnival I am one. Our
aloofness is mainly irrational, I suppose. It is due mainly to
temperamental Toryism. We say `The old is better.' This we say to
ourselves, every one of us feeling himself thereby justified in his
attitude. But we are quite aware that such a postulate would not be
accepted by time majority.
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