THE LONDONER REVIEWED..

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2646, 30 October 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

THE LONDONER REVIEWED..

Mr Pett Itidge, who knows certain* aspects of London life intimately, and has been writing about them for'years,, has become critical of the city and the people of his affection. In the current issue of the Nineteenth Centurv he. deals with the “Faults of the Londoner” more in sorrow than in anger,, as though one should admonish a-favorite child. And the Londoner’s faults—noneof us, of course, belong to the criticised sections—are many and obvious. Loudon, more than any other town,, considers Mr Pett Ridge produces the loafer. The crowds in other towns whostruggle to see. the Saturday football, match have, clearly, just come from some sort of employment, but “the - folk to be met on any summer weekday watching cricket at the Oval, and explaining how players ought to play., seem never to do anything else. The. men who rest elbows on the parapet -of London Bridge, and regard the loading and unloading of steamers below., have apparently no other occupation.” Poor woinen loaf at private views : ud the like; poor men loaf everywhere ami . well-to-do, men loaf in tlieir clubs. Only the middle-classes are comparatively exempt from loafing: it is only for • the extremes of society that the necessity for. working does not appear to exist. “The loafer of town lounges through life scarcely knowing the day* or the month, and, at the end, when lie is missing, nobody misses him. The criminal, says the writer, is a much finer type. The life of skilled crime is “a sporting life, and there is something to be said in favor of those who take part; if it could only be practised witliout causing detriment to others it would be credited with all the virtues of ingenuity and ambition.” The Londoner also, says Mr Pett Ridge, persistently refuses to do hisduty in local affairs, is not genuinely patriotic, and is not over-generous, though lie manages to get rid of his. money with ,marked success. Also—and now we are getting nearer home—he does not buy books as lie should r “What I complain of (but this is jiossibly a prejudiced view) is that the. Londoner makes at the bookshop ■ no purchases exceeding the amount of sixpence. He does not add to the contents of his bookcase in the manner of a provincial. Recently he has been, tempted to buy the*cheap edition of a copyright-expired work, and I find this on his table with page six turned down, and he tells me that some day, when he has' plenty of leisure, lie intends to have another go at it.” This is discouraging, certainly, to authors whose copyrights are not extinct: but I doubt whether the provincial buys more books than the Londoner—except,* of course, in Scotland, where -people really dorer.d. . “