he municipal celebration last summer.

No description of London would be complete without a reference, however
brief, to the singular salubrity and charm of the London climate. This
is seen at its best during the autumn and winter months. The climate of
London and indeed of England generally is due to the influence of the
Gulf Stream. The way it works is thus: The Gulf Stream, as it nears the
shores of the British Isles and feels the propinquity of Ireland, rises
into the air, turns into soup, and comes down on London. At times the
soup is thin and is in fact little more than a mist: at other times it
has the consistency of a thick Potage St. Germain. London people are a
little sensitive on the point and flatter their atmosphere by calling it
a fog: but it is not: it is soup. The notion that no sunlight ever gets
through and that in the London winter people never see the sun is
of course a ridiculous error, circulated no doubt by the jealousy of
foreign nations. I have myself seen the sun plainly visible in London,
without the aid of glasses, on a November day in broad daylight; and
again one night about four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the sun
distinctly appear through the clouds. The whole subject of daylight in
the London winter is, however, one which belongs rather to the technique
of astronomy than to a book of description. In practice daylight is
but little used. Electric lights are burned all the time in all houses,
buildings, railway stations and clubs. This practice which is now
universally observed is called Daylight Saving.

But the distinction between day and night during the London winter is
still quite obvious to any one of an observant mind. It is indicated by
various signs such as the striking of clocks, the tolling of bells, the
closing of saloons, and the raising of taxi rates. It is much less easy
to distinguish the technical approach of night in the other cities of
England that lie outside the confines, physical and intellectual, of
London and live in a continuous gloom. In such places as the great
manufacturing cities, Buggingham-under-Smoke, or Gloomsbury-on-Ooze,
night may be said to be perpetual.

*****

I had written the whole of the above chapter and looked on it as
finished when I realised that I had made a terrible omission. I
neglected to say anything about the Mind of London. This is a thing that
is always put into any book of discovery and observation and I can only
apologis