| Show f 1 YANKft DOODLS IUAIITII i IN TnE EART Of LONDON I Bloomsbury the BoardingHouse i District of American Tourists Who Are Flocking Thither in Great Numbers S London May 1BloOm > burr Is reiidv w for its annual American harvest R this month and lilch begins oillclally nominally ends on October 1st 4 Keep an eye on Bloomsbury for it has absorbed and waxed fat on several of American dollars nnrt It Is millions toklns in more cnch year Bloomsbury district In which nine out of is the every ten American tourists find an R place while In London The abiding British Museum presides in stately I dignity over this little patch of the t United States It Is In the heart of the metropolis ten minutes by bus from I everywhere The summer American staked out his dalni In Bloomsbury ten years or more so but It is only lately that he arid more particularly I has entered into full possession Today this square bait mile Just north of Holborn is almost slmonpuro American all summer sum-mer and almost half Aincrlcnn all winter Tt gathers In almost as much American money ns the American buui l ness district down around Snow Hill gathers of English money DIGGER THAN EVER THIS YEAR In the course of a tour of tho boardinghouses board-inghouses which now line Russell Bedford Torrlngton and Gordon squares and the other streets and parks of Bloomsbury U developed that advance orders and early arrivals from across the ocean gave promise this year of a bigger season than ever and the promise is significant enough to be worth or serious attention In the United States for at the present rate of Increase the drain of American money spent In European travel will begin to be felt before long Tho significance of Bloomsbury joy this season is that by all ordinary reckoning this ought to be an oft year The crowds drawn to Europe this sum i 1 tic i < I a fU l r tY J IL1 s 1 l x d o I ui L1 I l t I IbI I 1 i11 n 4 ti tl s i lll I A CORKER OF r 1 L BEDFORD SQUARE mcr by the Paris fair the Christian Endeavor convention and the Passion play Were unprecedented and might Do expected to cause a reaction this scar especially with the PanAmerican fair pulling lustily In the opposite direction and the coronation of Edward VII coming along just In time to make an attraction for visits to England next I year Instead of this But here they come theory to the contrary notwithstanding notwith-standing The steamship offices this tourist agencies and the Bloomsbury landladies all say they have reason to expect fully as ninny American dollars dol-lars this year as last A SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION REVOLU-TION You begin to get the transAtlantic atmosphere immediately you leave I iralflcJammed Holborn and emerge Into Russell square The bus man knows an American when he sees onfr and will Inform you without solicitation solicita-tion that the penny fare Is tho equivalent equiva-lent of two American cents The confectionery con-fectionery stores In the district are labeled candy shops and c nrhils an American word The London confectioner con-fectioner elsewhere than In Americanized American-ized Bloomsbury sells sweets and your request for candy Is Greek to him In Upper Bedford place we find ncsldes the usual Victoria House or Queens Chambers apartments rejoicing re-joicing in smell titles us The Delmonl oo the Fifth Avenue and the Boston Bos-ton But these outward and visible signs I of American conquest are slight l as compared with the evidences gleaned In I a tour of the nelghboihood In thel liter I est of this article Landladies admitted I ad-mitted freely I that the presence of so many Americans had really caused n complete revolution In the BJoomsbury menage In the anteAmerican period pe-riod according to these witnesses the Bloomsburg boardinghouses like such institutions all over London were old fashioned In nearly every possible way Gas was a luxury and the lodger depended de-pended largely upon > candles the number num-ber used by him being a conspicuous Item In his bill If there was a bathtub bath-tub It was of the most primitive type and the boarder was obliged to depend for cleanliness on the exaggerated pie tin which accompanies tho Briton on his travels and Is called by him a bathtub for warmth on a feeble grate r I f I 3yt 1r t J j i I l NW 1 f I III flu r r I ° f e 11 u r o F I r + h V il 7 a 1 THE 13R1TIJH MUJEUH WHICH PRESIDED IK JTV1TB OVER THE AMERICAN BOARDING HOUSE DISTRICT 0F LONDON 4 t A L 1 L t r i I M 1 Y rl 1 Ni 111 fQ li i I 11 l r i I f + I i r dO L I I I r I r 1 2 q TlIO LJ l fi t J J I r f i FifP r i I f t i T LOOKING UP TORIINGTOH SQUARE I I lies of coke furnished to the lodger at 12 cents or more a scuttle t In former times the Bloomsbury visitor took tea with his breakfast egg and his bill at the end of the wqck was likely to furnish a glad surprise In the shape of an array of typically British extras for attendance lights boots and the like extras which In their aggregate effectually overtopped the sum which he previously had stipulated stipu-lated that his entertainment should cost him But In Bloomsbury now all this Is changed and It Is the American tourist who has brought the change to pass Ills protests against the antediluvian order of things in the midst of which ho found himself have prevailed and In a score of boardinghouses visited lthe other day all except one or two boasted electric light gas stoves and the American type of bath The visitor I was told that not only had breakfast coffee superseded breakfast tea in the various establishments but that an I Inclusive price had been adopted and I that extras had censed to exist WHAT BOARD WILL COST Although things are going to cost more In London this year It Is sail 1 that there will be no general Increase In the cost of board The regulation I rate for a single room on the second or I third floor and full board with the exception of luncheon seems to be about 750 or the room alone may betaken be-taken nnd breakfasts and dinners supplied sup-plied extra at the rate of one and sixpence six-pence 36 cents for the first and half a crown 60 cents for the second 1 There are many evidences that the Bloomburyltcs find entertainment of I I the traveling American profitable one of the most striking being that tho most of the boardinghouses in the district dis-trict are virtually empty during the winter when the tourist from the States is not They live on their fatso fat-so to speak Spring hardly arrives however before these establishments are busy again the visitors ot the year before nearly always sending their I friends and relatives to the address I where they found lodgings And In view of tho manner In which pushing Americans are Invading other fields in London It Is not surprising to find that American boardinghouse keepers are transferring their establishments to Bloomsbury and In Bedford place tho nattiest boardinghouse In the street bears a shining brass plate with the announcement Mrs Plank of New York in striking black letters LANDLADIES HAPPY Naturally Americans are popular with I Bloomsbury landladies All agree that the visitors from the United States are reasonable satisfied with fair treatment treat-ment and easy to get along with Said one good dame who apparently had entertained en-tertained at one time or another three fourths of the population of Ithaca N Y After all theyre Just English people They didnt like things In this country so they went and found a new one for themselves and now they like to come over and see the old place Tho American woman In Bedford place she says that she advertises extensively ex-tensively In newspapers all over the Union had an Interesting communication communica-tion to make My house has been full of Americans all winter she auld and I know there are more all over I I 1 a4 r I A r I N 7 7 Iv v 1f ti r I r C Mow r w 4 YW rrtlnto THE TOURISTS F017RWHPBLER RVsSeLL c5QUAR I the neighborhood Youve no Idea how many Americans are In business In London how many American women and girls are studying over here and how many more American businesspeople business-people arc arriving every week They represent almost every Industry we have I have had four shoe men each representing a different brand here all winter and today a Georgia pine man arrived Theyre making a great fuss In London about tho American inva sion1 and American competition but what they have had Isnt a blrcum stance to what Is coming Why London Lon-don Is simply full of American promoters promo-ters I tell you some day these people will wake up and find that theyre out of It and that day Isnt very far distant dis-tant either BLOOMSBURYS LITERATURE Bloomsbury Is rich In literary memo rlen John Buskin was born In the district dis-trict In a grimy but eminently respectable j respect-able house that bears a little tablet to his honor Sheridan Knoxvlcs and I Campbell had lodgIngs In Alfred place In the heart of the district Pugln I lived there too and In the outer edges J of Bloomsbury lived Edmund Burke Dryden Mozart nor has genius entirely I en-tirely forsaken the locality yet for Richard Whitelng the author of No 5 John Street lives in Mecklenburg square I Thackeray lovers however of whom a recent writer declared there were more In America than In England will find the chief Interest of Bloomsbury In tho Tact that here it was that many of the best scenes In Vanity Fair were laid Amelia Sedley In the days of the familys prosperity lived In Russell square and it was to her home there I that she carried Becky Sharp after the two glrlB bade farewell to the Miss Plnkertonss finishing school at Chls wick Russell square was solemn and formal and purseproud in Thackerays day but now It Is given over largely l to tho sign of Board and Lodgings and as If I to complete the transformation transforma-tion one of the largest hotels In London Lon-don reared Itself last year In one corner of the square At all hours of the day fourwheelers rumble there with an unmistakably un-mistakably American trunk on top and moro often than nola pretty face InsideCHEAP CHEAP TRAVEL DID IT The Americanization of Bloomsbury resulted from the discovery made by moderately welltodo Americans that a trip to Europe was not such a mighty undertaking after all and that by avoiding the expensive hotels and not trying to go too far on the continent one could get a lot of sightseeing done for 900 It i 411 1 G t t Inn n L vvv s 10 s e uo < > UL mer cans that Is coming to London in such rap idlyincreasing numbers The tourist agents say that the American Amer-ican who Is visiting Europe for the first time still desires above all things to do London Erin and the country of Scott and Burns likewise retain their old popularity Paris Brussels the Rhine and Switzerland come next In the order named and then Italy if the traveler has time to devote to It May American people of modest means are doing the continent on tho installment plan saving up through one year to do tho British Isles the next for Franco and Germany and so on until old age overtakes them NEW PHASES OF CONTINENTAL TRAVEL Ilis however becoming more and more common with travelers who have 1 seen England to cross direct to Cherbourg Cher-bourg A trip also that yearly is Increasing In-creasing In popularity Is that by which the traveler crosses direct from New York to Naples thus making almost certain of milder weather and a less severe crossing than by way of the Banks More and more Americans too are Invading the Holy Land and Egypt where the season Just ended has been the best on record The latest Egyptian wrinkle consists In doing the Nllo by houseboat known as da habeah a cruise In which occupies nearly an entire season Such boats which go up the Nile as far as the first cataract arc owned and rented by both the great tourist companies who declare de-clare that this Is the only true way to see and study tho country of the Put I raohs Several Americans among them William Waldorf Astor did the ancient stream last year In this fashion fash-ion It Is admitted freely that in response to the demands of satiated American travelers tho people who arrange tours ate seeking for new fields of travel I and these they expect to find In Russia and western AsiaNow practically un trodden by the sightseer who however I how-ever soon will be able to exchange coupons for both transportation and entertainment through the Czars domain I do-main across the Caspian sea and to Persia to the boiling oil wells or Eternal Eter-nal Fires and even up Mount Ararat itself CURTIS BROWN |
