1936 On the Continent

Britain, but also all over the world. There is the Socialist
Daily Herald
with a circulation of two million copies per day. The
Daily Express
has a similarly vast circulation, while the
Daily Mail
, chief organ of the Rothermere group of publications, which is Nationalist in tendency, sells a mere 1,800,000 copies per day. The Liberal and pacifist
News Chronicle
has a circulation of 1,300,000, while all three of the politically most influential papers,
The Times, Daily Telegraph
and
Morning Post
, have far smaller circulations. The latter papers all support the present National Government, though they are otherwise completely independent of it (like all independent newspapers in England), and in spite of their small circulations they have become no less characteristic of and integral to English life than, for instance, Parliament or Oxford University.
    The illustrated papers,
Daily Mirror
and
Daily Sketch
have educated millions of women to the habit of newspaper reading. The great Sunday papers, like the
News of the World
(circulation 3,000,000),
The People, Sunday Express, Sunday Referee, Sunday Dispatch, Reynolds, Sunday Chronicle, Empire News
and
Sunday Graphic
, provide weekend entertainment for all classes of the British people, while the
Observer
and the
Sunday Times
cater exclusively for the educated classes. This enumeration of the organs of London’s daily and weekly Press is not so superfluous as it might appear, for if there is anything that is typical of London it is the intellectual and spiritual forces reflected in these publications, which issue from a maze of mean streets into the whole world.
The World of Money
    Let us now once more board our No. 15 bus and proceed further into the City. It will take us through the busy Ludgate Circus, which boasts the only traffic tower in London, and past St. Paul’s Cathedral, into the realm of Money. The peculiar mentality of the English people, which enables them to adapt themselves to the requirements of a modern age while still clinging to tradition, is manifested here also. The old private banks that started in their various patrician houses in this part of the City, have developed into large concerns with interests embracing the whole world, yet the have remained loyal to the old, narrow streets. In Lombard Street, Threadneedle Street, Lothbury, Cornhill, Poultry, and the surrounding streets—nearly all so narrow and haphazardly laid out that it is sometimes difficult to know which is which—more financial power is concentrated in one small area than anywhere else in the world.
The Bank of England
    This area contains the financial institutions which, by their vastness, importance and stability, have become concepts. There is the Bank of England, which is now being re-built. Its underground vaults, where England’s gold reserve is guarded, will be one of the modern wonders of the world. But while the engineers are applying the most marvellous devices known to science and technology,a military guard is posted each evening in the Bank, for no other possible reason than that this has been done for centuries past.
The Fate of Top Hats
    But in one respect at least the City has changed. Formerly stockbrokers—stock-broking is a gentlemanly profession in England—used to go to work wearing top hats. They have now almost completely emancipated themselves from this rule, though a few old gentlemen still consider it a disgrace to appear at their offices in ordinary hats. However, bank messengers have remained faithful to the old tradition, and still wear top hats and, in many cases, a special uniform. The messengers of the Bank of England in their mauve liveries and top hats are rather picturesque. Apart from the departure from top hats, the dignity of City life is maintained by the fact that City workers generally wear dark suits.
    If you expect to see the same stormy scenes round the London Stock Exchange as at the Bourses of other countries, you are bound to be disappointed. The national character of the English precludes emotionalism even when millions of pounds are at stake. After the official closing hour members of the Stock Exchange continue to do business in the street,—“on the kerb”—but even here their conduct is no less quiet and reserved than if they were in one of the exclusive clubs.
Lloyd’s
    Some traditional names in the City are misleading. For instance, the Royal Exchange, Cornhill, which can look back on a history of five centuries,