Cannon Street

“ In Cannon Street there is a house that looks out upon a little railed-in grave-yard, and there these patient, suffering ladies resided for some time, nobly fulfilling the duties of their fallen station, and dying at length honoured and lamented by all who knew them. ”

“ Take, for instance, London and Boston—the Cannon street station in the one and the Beach street station in the other. The concentration of traffic at London is so great that it becomes necessary to utilize every foot of ground devoted to railroad purposes to the utmost possible extent. Not only must it be packed with tracks, but those tracks must never be idle. The incessant train movement at Cannon street has already been referred to as probably the most extraordinary and confusing spectacle in the whole wide circle of railroad wonders. ”

“ More than 1000 vehicles per hour pass through this street in the business period of an average day, besides foot-passengers! To ease the traffic in Cheapside, a spacious new thoroughfare, New Cannon Street, has been opened, from near London Bridge westward to St. Paul’s Churchyard. The third main line of route is not so much thronged, nor so interesting to strangers. It may be considered as beginning at the Bank, and passing through the City Road and the New Road to Paddington and Westbourne. ”

“ Cannon Street, I cannot doubt, represents one east to west street. Thames Street must have been formed when the south City Wall was built. I have spoken of the north-south lines above. Saint Benet “Gerschereche” is mentioned in a charter of 1053 (Athen., February 3, 1906) .
Wren found a “causeway” made up of stones and tiles by Bow Church (under the present tower) . It is suggested in V.C.H. that this was an embankment, but causeway was one of the regular names for a Roman road. At Rochester one 5 ft. or 6 ft. thick of hard stuff has been found crossing some soft ground. ”

“ The credit acquired by the City has been reflected upon the whole nation, and there are none so mean as not to have heard of the wealth, magnificence, and genial hospitality of the free-born citizens of the metropolis of the British empire.
With regard to thoroughfares, it has already been stated that the street tolls were mortgaged for some years, in order to raise the requisite funds for carrying out Farringdon Street to the northern boundary of the City. More recently an enormous debt has been incurred in the construction of Cannon Street. ”

“ At length a few detached shots seemed to give a prearranged signal, at which the entire population of a vast town was to burst from its concealment, and in an instant the flat roofs of the houses swarmed with a mass of musqueteers, who poured a deadly, and almost unerring, fire upon the British soldiers. Under any circumstances the combat between men exposed in an open street, and adversaries ensconced behind the parapets of the houses on each side, must have been an unequal one ”

“ I replied, “I don’t desire to go into business in London; and, as I can find but little to amuse me, I am thinking of returning to Australia.”
“Ah! that’s strange,” rejoined Cannon. “Perhaps the reason why you are not amused, is because you are a stranger here, and have but little society. Come along with me, and I will introduce you to some of my friends, who can show you some London life. Will you promise to meet me here to-morrow, at half-past ten o’clock?” ”

“ What a different picture Canton presents to Shameen. They say there are millions of people in Canton. The streets, many of which are roughly paved with stone, seem little over a yard in width. The shops, with their gayly colored and handsomely carved signs, are all open, as if the whole end facing the street had been blown out. In the rear of every shop is an altar, gay in color and often expensive in adornment. As we were carried along the roads we could see not only the usually rich and enticing wares, but the sellers and buyers. Every shop has a book-keeper's desk near the entrance. ”

“ There are no wheeled vehicles in these granite-paved thoroughfares, and no beasts of burden, for the broadest and most important street of Canton is but eight feet wide, while in most of them a tall man standing in the middle may touch the houses on either side with his extended finger-tips. ”

“ The streets of the city of Canton are irregularly built and tortuous in their course ; those of the poorer sort are much narrower than the one shown in the photograph ; they are badly kept, filthy, and even more offensive than the most crowded alley in London, the right of way being contested between human beings, domestic pigs, and undomcsticated mongrel curs. ”

“ He shrank within himself from the harsh vitality of it all. He was filled with a dread of calling down some of the laughter upon himself. The road grew narrower, the wheeled traffic more [Pg 166] congested; the yellow and red trams seemed to fill the street. Motor-cars, trams, carts, all moved slowly and cautiously. A little girl started to move across the road, her eyes fixed on someone or something she had seen on the other side. Another step and she would be under a motor-car. René moved to save her. ”

“ I've never excused my failures by sneering at my aspirations, by pretending to have gone beyond them. I do not admit that Main Street is as beautiful as it should be! I do not admit that Gopher Prairie is greater or more generous than Europe! I do not admit that dish-washing is enough to satisfy all women! I may not have fought the good fight, but I have kept the faith."
"Sure. You bet you have," said Kennicott. ”

“ In Pont Street my demeanour is not so calm and measured. I feel less sure of myself, and adopt a slight swagger. In High Street, Kensington, I find myself dapper and respectable, with a slight leaning to the fine arts. In High Street, Notting Hill, I become frankly common. Fleet Street fills me with a conviction that if I don't make haste I shall be jeopardising the national welfare. ”

“ To be strolling on the King's Road in converse with George Cannon was a matter, of pride to boarders male and female. And there was none with whom he could not talk fluently, on any subject from cigars to ozone, according to the needs of the particular case. ”

“ If Kennicott were snatched from Gopher Prairie and instantly conveyed to a town leagues away, he would not realize it. He would go down apparently the same Main Street (almost certainly it would be called Main Street) ; in the same drug store he would see the same young man serving the same ice-cream soda to the same young woman with the same magazines and phonograph records under her arm. ”

“ As soon as we had crossed the French Bridge [467] and entered Canton, I began to feel seriously uneasy. We were carried through the labyrinth of narrow, muddy evil-smelling streets crowded with humanity; pigs and rooks are their only cleaners. Our carriers advanced with difficulty through the crowd, elbowing the people. There is no foot-way, and at the corners our porters shouted “ho-ho, hi-ha!” to make the people avoid the path, scattering them to right and left. The streets are full of shops, banners, Chinese lanterns, bizarre sign-boards hang down to the ground. ”

“ So it chanced that Carol Kennicott and Bea Sorenson were viewing Main Street at the same time.
Bea had never before been in a town larger than Scandia Crossing, which has sixty-seven inhabitants.
As she marched up the street she was meditating that it didn't hardly seem like it was possible there could be so many folks all in one place at the same time. My! It would take years to get acquainted with them all. And swell people, too! A fine big gentleman in a new pink shirt with a diamond, and not no washed-out blue denim working-shirt. ”

“ History repeats itself, and every city is bound by all the laws of civilization to have one special street wherein the votaries of fashion may congregate. Collins Street is not, of course, such a grand thoroughfare as those above mentioned, but the people who stroll up and down the broad pavement are quite as charmingly dressed, and as pleasant as any of the paripatetics of those famous cities. ”

“ A year later the house was completed and the Cannon family, surrounded by an aura of high-colored, accumulating anecdote, moved down from Nevada and took possession.
Mrs. Cannon, who in her girlhood had been the prettiest waitress in the Yuba Hotel at Marysville and had married Bill Cannon when he was an underground miner, was the subject of much gossip in the little group which at [148] that time made up San Francisco’s fashionable world. They laughed at her and went to her entertainments. They told stories of her small social mistakes, and fawned on her husband for positions for their sons. ”

“ If one does not make his entry into Cannes by road, direct from the Estérel, he will probably come by the way of Le Cannet. Le Cannet is itself a sumptuous suburb which in every way foretells the luxury which awaits one in the parent city by the seashore.
Three kilometres of palm and plantain bordered avenue, lined with villas and hotels, joins Le Cannet with Cannes. Not long ago the suburb was an humble, indifferent village, but the tide of popularity came that way, and it has become transformed. ”

“ She saw Main Street in the dusty prairie sunset, a line of frontier shanties with solemn lonely people waiting for her, solemn and lonely as an old man who has outlived his friends. She remembered that Kennicott and Sam Clark had listened to her songs, and she wanted to run to them and sing. ”

“ One would not imagine John Chinaman an expert electrician, yet these people managed somehow to tap the electric mains, and the manager estimated the weekly loss on stolen power as about 500 pounds.
No street in Canton is wider than eight feet, and many of them are only five feet broad. They are densely packed with yellow humanity, though there is no wheeled traffic whatever. There are countless miles of these narrow, stifling alleys, paved with rough granite slabs, under which festers the sewage of centuries. The smells are unbelievably hideous. ”

“ To those who really understand them, every one of the great, vital streets of the world has a soul as well as a body. The social invader from the West, the merchant whose establishment still found profit in Grand Street, the banker from Broad Street, or the ship's chandler from South, the club awakening to the fact that its quarters on Broadway or in one of the side streets near Irving Place was too far downtown, or in size inadequate to its growing membership—those were the agencies that wrought the Avenue's material development. ”

“ Canterbury is far larger than ever before, and its modern pavements, that ring with soldiers’ tread, or with the speedy walk of busy citizens, are raised many feet above the street level of old Durovernum. Where the old Roman Watling Street left the city by what is now called the Riding Gate, the original paving of that military way was discovered some few years ago at a depth of fourteen feet below the level of the present road. ”

“ And that was why you might have seen a Mephisto and a slender troubadour of lovely form, with mandolin flung across his shoulder, followed by a bevy of jockeys and ballet girls, laughing and singing as they swept down Rampart Street. [Pg 80]
When the flash and glare and brilliancy of Canal Street have palled upon the tired eye, and it is yet too soon to go home, and to such a prosaic thing as dinner, and one still wishes for novelty, then it is wise to go in the lower districts. Fantasy and fancy and grotesqueness in the costuming and behavior of the maskers run wild. ”

“ Seen from the city wall or any very high point, Canton seems a city of roofs, with scarcely an opening and not a vestige of green. The narrow streets are many of them covered with awnings. It is a city of great color, the brilliant signs, the covered palanquin chairs, the costumes of the wealthy Chinese, all contributing to the riotous effect. It is a city of very wide contrasts, for rich and poor jostle each other on the streets and their homes are often side by side. ”

“ People constantly breathing the same atmosphere may notice a change in the "surroundings," but to common observers, or prying people paying occasional visits to this place, Kent Street seems ever the same—an eye-sore to public gaze, a satire on parish cleanliness and care, a disgrace to parish authorities in general, and landlords and ground landlords in particular. ”

“ It is Tim Cannon, surprised every morning at waking to find himself out of the den of the city slums, where morning, noon and night his grandfather—being in liquor at the time—would drive him out to steal some trifle good for a drink at the pawnbroker's saloon. And having no knowledge that a living is to be gained by a more honorable profession than crime he peeps out with suspicion on the open streets and yards, where it is impossible to hide from a patrolman. ”

“ I'll recruit from young material. Ruin 'em when they's boys, and, while you kin pet 'em, they'll do your work! I have one nigger in the garret Joe wants to burn: he's my nigger, and I'll let him loose to bring me more niggers. Money is what I need to put on a bold front: Huldy must fetch it!"
With this resolution Patty Cannon mounted the stairs to a room on the second floor, and, without knocking, pushed her way in. ”

“ This Nancy trudged for hours through straight and terrible streets called avenues, with a dismal husband and a tired baby at her side. Third Avenue, Fourth Avenue, then quickly across Fifth Avenue, which had nothing to do with us, and again across to Sixth Avenue ... and everywhere dirty shops, screaming children, jostling girls, rude men, trains rushing overhead, street-cars screeching and clanging. Then, at last, Seventh Avenue, where there were streets full of quiet, squalid boarding-houses, fewer screaming children, fewer dirty shops, and no trains. ”

“ But I passed one letter-box, then another, and in the end found myself going up Collins Street with the letter still in my pocket—against my heart. Collins Street at four o’clock in the afternoon is not exactly a desert solitude; but I had never felt more isolated from the rest of mankind as when I walked that day its crowded pavement, battling desperately with my thoughts and feeling already vanquished. ”