Hyde Park, Its History and RomanceAlec-Tweedie, Mrs. (Ethel)
History
Hyde Park, Its History and Romance
Alec-Tweedie, Mrs. (Ethel)
Hyde Park (London, England); London (England) -- Social life and customs
“Why, so it is, and how nice she looks,” he replied, and as he spoke
another woman similarly engaged came into view. We soon put on our
hats, and wandered off to watch the ladies of Copenhagen indulging in
such a novel pastime. I quickly decided that as soon as I returned to
London I would try, too. I did, in the dusk round the Regent’s Park,
stared at and jeered at by the little boys, who found great fun in a
woman’s first futile endeavours to mount.
Paris quickly followed Denmark’s lead, and England came along slowly
behind. Every man, woman, and child rides a bicycle nowadays. On
their first appearance, and for many years afterwards, bicycles were
not allowed in the parks, but gradually it was found impossible to
keep them out, and in 1904 an order was issued allowing them to be
ridden anywhere in Hyde Park except at the busiest hours. Even that
restriction was shortly afterwards withdrawn, and one cycled among
thousands of riders passing in a constant stream between the Achilles
statue and along the banks of the Serpentine to the Magazine.
The cycle craze, however, as a means of town amusement for the
fashionable world, has already died out. In Hyde Park it had but a
short life. One year everyone flocked to Battersea Park, where in
certain hours of the day the cycling throng mustered in battalions, and
most of them were smart young Englishwomen. But nowadays the cyclists
seen in the Park are not those who come out to while away an hour or
two, but mostly riders taking a short cut to distant parts of London or
to the country.
The evolution of the twentieth-century girl began with the “bike” at
the end of the previous decade, and is taking root in the suffragette.
The motor seems to be the last word in locomotion, and until the flying
machine is more firmly established to enable us poor groundlings to
course through the air, it is difficult to foresee what is going
to displace it. The first efforts of motoring were not altogether
happy. So terrible had the smell and the noise of the petrol cars
become, that in 1906 an order was issued that none but electrically
driven vehicles were to pass through the Park between the hours of
four and seven. Then those delightfully silent electric landaulettes
plied in and out of the horsed traffic, almost unperceived, and the
objectionable fumes disappeared.
Frequently the King’s car is to be seen in Hyde Park. One day, a year
or two ago, his Majesty’s motor came to a sudden stop in Richmond Park,
and a crowd which promptly assembled enjoyed the agreeable spectacle
of the King instructing his chauffeur how to deal with a breakdown,
and showing in a number of ways his intimate knowledge of motor-car
mechanism.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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