by Mrs Varmer

Well, my dear, when our Ada Jane wrote to me from London suggesting I should pay her a visit, I was all of a tremble with excitement. You see our Ada Jane has married well, her husband, you have heard me speak of George Coombes, when he was a lad in the village, he just chucked his father's business, mind you he was not doing as he should of, but young men will be young men, and with Five pounds in his pocket and an introduction to his present master, he started for London. Well he got on as most sharp country lads do and beat the cockney shoomen and was made manager of one department getting a good £150 a year. The back he came and snapped up our Ada Jane and now they have a comfortable little flat at Willesden Green, for you must know that if you have two rooms or four it's more polite to call it a flat than a front floor, second or a third floor back.

"Well, as I was saying, I got an invitation to visit them and I just whipped down to the village and got my bonnet done up and my best merino trimmed up with some bugle trimming and my cape edged with some black lace and wrote and accepted the invitation. I started off with my nice tin box in the van and a band box with my best bonnet I was telling you about and a basket with a few eggs, a fowl, two pounds of butter and some garden stuff as our Ada always likes our country food and says that in London a new laid egg is a fortnight old and fresh egg quite a month, but there's no place like London. Nothing much happened on the way and in two hours time I came in sight though I must say the fog seemed about but a gentleman in the train remarked on the beautiful weather there was in town this autumn. Presently we arrived at Paddington. There was such a mint of people and when I got out our Ada rushed at me while two porters nearly knocked me over as I was quietly hand out the basket, the umbrella, the band box and a parcel I had with me. Then off our porter rushed with my best bonnet and banged down the basket until I thought the eggs would be broke. Inside a barred off place he jumped while other porters pitched out the boxes from the van. I saw about twenty tin boxes just like mine and the porter called out: 'Come Missis which is your box?' while a gent pushed me on one side and three ladies and six porters pushed me in other directions. However, I just hung on to Ada who called out: 'that there box with the red band and out came our porter with it and popped it on a cab and off we drove. Now I must say these London porters are mighty sharp and well deserve the tips which Ada says are forbidden but which they don't refuse and very right of them. Well, outside the station it was very dark, but Ada said it was not foggy. Soon we arrived at Baker Street where we got into a train which smelt horrible and was very dirty and seemed to stick in a tunnel the whole way and the smoke came into the carriage and it reminded me of what our minister tells us of the place the wicked go to. Then we arrived at Willesden Green and came to the outside of a great building and I said to Ada, 'Why Ada you never live in the workhouse, or are they model lodgings?' 'Get along with your chaff. Why these are our Mansions.' 'Mansions?' say I, 'Never, my dear. What an ugly place to be sure, why there is not a tree or a shrub to be seen.' Just then down came George and white and sickly he looked, but he said he was well and we got into a lift and went up six floors and arrived at their flat. Well, my dear, that was nice when you got in, but lord! it was a fearful way from the ground and when you looked out of the windows you felt like a cat and wanted to jump on the nearest roof and run from one to another for miles. If it were not for the smoke Ada said it was a wonderful view. I suppose it was wonderful, but I like better to look over our meadows to the woods and hills beyond. Next day Ada took me out to see the shops and I could not help standing and looking at the poultry shops, and I was just stroking a fat duck when out came the man. 'What can I do for you, Madame?' 'Well, nothing,' says I, 'but what a quantity of food. Who eats it all?' The man laughs and Ada pulls me and I look at one shop after another till I just feel dizzy. Then Ada and George said: 'Why mother, shops in London are always out of stock and you can never get anything you want and if they have a packet of envelopes to-day and you want to get the same sort to-morrow, they are out of stock. And so with everything.' I think you would be surprised to see the young women in the mornings doing their shopping in Sunday frocks all trimmed with silk and lace and pearls and jewellery and silk petticoats but it all looks a bad color though Ada tells me it's only London smoke has spoiled the lace a bit. Of course I went to see the sights, but the crossings frightened me, and I tried to count the omnibuses at Piccadilly Circus when we were waiting, but my dear I couldn't for about a hundred passed in ten minutes.

Then they took me in the "tube". I was frightened at first for it's like going into a drain pipe and then the train rushes in like a great whale and the iron doors clank like prison but the carriages are just like our nice clean trams only longer and you find you have arrived and must go into a lift and with a jerk and a bang of more iron doors you are just shot out into the street.

Now I enjoyed my visit and was glad to see Ada Jane in her grand Mansion, but I was more glad when I found myself in the cart driving up to the old farm with my old man waiting for me at the door, and the Kitchen looked so clean and everything so white after London things, though, mind you, our Ada Jane was forever cleaning, and her flat was kept as nice as. it could be allowing for smoke and smuts and she no place to shake a mat or a rug. And next time George and Ada Jane are to come to us as I had enough of London noise and hurry and all the young men with their little bodies and their pale faces, and the sallow, over-dressed, high steppers of girls, all rushing about as if the world was on fire, and they had only a moment left to get into the moon and be saved.

But there, they all say 'there's no place like London.' I hope there is not."