of America had made me a proposal,
as honourable to him as it was lucrative to me, that immediately on my
arrival in London;--or just before it,--I should send him a thousand
words on the genius of the English, and five hundred words on the spirit
of London, and two hundred words of personal chat with Lord Northcliffe.
This contract I was unable to fulfil except the personal chat with Lord
Northcliffe, which proved an easy matter as he happened to be away in
Australia.

But I have since pieced together my impressions as conscientiously as I
could and I present them here. If they seem to be a little bit modelled
on British impressions of America I admit at once that the influence
is there. We writers all act and react on one another; and when I see a
good thing in another man's book I react on it at once.

London, the name of which is already known to millions of readers of
this book, is beautifully situated on the river Thames, which here
sweeps in a wide curve with much the same breadth and majesty as the St.
Jo River at South Bend, Indiana. London, like South Bend itself, is
a city of clean streets and admirable sidewalks, and has an excellent
water supply. One is at once struck by the number of excellent and
well-appointed motor cars that one sees on every hand, the neatness
of the shops and the cleanliness and cheerfulness of the faces of the
people. In short, as an English visitor said of Peterborough, Ontario,
there is a distinct note of optimism in the air. I forget who it was who
said this, but at any rate I have been in Peterborough myself and I have
seen it.

Contrary to my expectations and contrary to all our Transatlantic
precedents, I was not met at the depot by one of the leading citizens,
himself a member of the Municipal Council, driving his own motor car.
He did not tuck a fur rug about my knees, present me with a really
excellent cigar and proceed to drive me about the town so as to show me
the leading points of interest, the municipal reservoir, the gas works
and the municipal abattoir. In fact he was not there. But I attribute
his absence not to any lack of hospitality but merely to a certain
reserve in the English character. They are as yet unused to the arrival
of lecturers. When they get to be more accustomed to their coming, they
will learn to take them straight to the municipal abattoir just as we
do.

For lack of better guidance, therefore, I had to form my impressions of
London by myself.