[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—As a commercial traveller who for the last five years has spent considerably more than half his time in London, Liverpool, Manchester, Hull, and Immingham, with occasional pleasure visits to Scotland and Devon, may I be allowed to say that your description of many of ourlarge towns as mining- camps is not at all too strong ? Wherever I happen to be I try to see the suburbs, local government buildings, and, of course,' the amusements, of a town, in addition to its business quarters, and in spite of a full share of a Yorkshire- man's " patriotism " for his own county, I am convinced that we have no town so good to work in as London. As for theatres, music, art, and most certainly in opportunities for 'games of every kind, comparison is impossible. My business is centred in Bradford, which seems to have escaped mention in your columns. Every time I return from London, Bradford seems dirtier, more squalid and more "soulless." I enelose two prints of photographs that might interest you. The need for smoke legislation is every bit as urgent here as in Sheffield. That you should criticise one and not the other is probably a mere oversight. In spite of your own assertion to the contrary, I think Londoners have a perfect right to find fault with the industrial northern towns on this score of smoke.—I am, Sir, &c., J. A. H. (The photographs enclosed show Bradford under a normal cloud of obscuring smoke, and Bradford with clear air while the factory -workers were on strike.—En. Spectator.] The Lord Mayor of Leeds, Sir Edwin Airey, sends the following memorandum :—"Mrs. Williams-Ellis, like Professor Adshead, weakens her case by over-exaggeration. Our industrial towns lack many amenities, and one is often sur- prised to find how fine the human products of these towns are, in -spite of the dismal and uphelpful surroundings in which they live. But in Leeds,. as elsewhere, I can assure your contributor there is a constant effort alike on the part of the 'City • Fathers' and of unofficial citizens to brighten and cheer the lives of their fellow-townsmen. Here there is not space to enumerate even a few of the forms these efforts take ; we can but urge your contributor to come and make acquain- tance with them for herself. The exchange of ideas which she suggests is doubtless a desirable thing, but possibly it is more desirable that those who inaugurate crusades should make sure first of their facts." -
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