" ZIP ZIP ZENITH !"
(AND SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE TOWN OF LEICESTER).
By A. WILLIAMS-ELLIS.
" IP ZIP ZENITH ! " cried Mr. George F. Babbitt LJ through his megaphone as he whirled his- rattle and shook the coloured paper streamers with which his hat had become involved.
" Zip Zip Zenith ! " As it was generally felt at the Middle-West town-boosting convention that such conduct was the best possible proof of good citizenship, one has every sympathy with Babbitt, the hero of Mr. Sinclair Lewis's famous novel. It was so much easier to shout than to do anything else for your native city. Indeed, Babbitt's conscience was not quite clear in that matter of the buying up of lots on private information about tram extensions. That made him all the more eager to reassure himself about his own loyalty. Loyalty ! That was the word ! That was the proof ! " What have you done to boost your town ? " That's what the " regular guys " were asking, and the answer was to cry once more (all together, boys !), " Zip Zip Zenith ! " And now—slowly, faintly, with less gay abandon it is true—across the Atlantic there steals an echo. Those publicity clubs, even the Press here and there in the old country, have caught the note. "'Ra 'Ra 'Ra Rochdale ! " "Leeds leads!" "Bravo little Bradford!"
The Spectator's question, " Is there a Civic Sense in England ? " may so far remain unanswered, but the controversies which have been raised in dozens of local newspapers all over the industrial districts of Britain have made it clear that we have plenty of the town- boosting sense. Of course, a great many sensible things have been said, but in many a town and city there seems to be a Babbitt, and loyally has he risen to administer his dignified rebukes. Here, in some of the papers amid the glories of enormous headlines, in others more discreetly, he speaks from " Worstedopolis " (Brad- ford) :— •
" Mrs. Williams-Ellis recently revealed the horrors ' of our provincial towns . . . and as pulling other people to pieces' is an occupation congenial to certain temperaments, the theme is being pursued in a vigorous correspondence. . . It would be interesting to know just what these very superior critics expect to find in these poor ' provincial' cities. Do they expect to find all London efflorescence of architectural and other luxuries in a city one-twentieth tho size ? They talk like it.. Bradford is smaller than London, a fact of which every Bradford man ought to be profoundly thankful. Otherwise Bradford has nothing to be apologetic about."
" Local indignation " has here been increased, by the way, because Mr. Heseltine has just written a life of Delius, in whiCh he speaks of the dull monotony of Bradford, and says that the composer " considered Stockholm was like Paradise after Bradford, with its third-rate theatre and sordid amusements." A speaker at the Manchester Publicity Club says there must be something wrong with Manchester or the Manchester Publicity Club, " when this great city can be described, as it was described the other day, as a mere mining-camp. I have many happy recollections of Manchester hos- pitality, and so far from it being a rough mining-camp, I can safely say that I have never met anywhere business people more alert or people more happy and more generous in their social proclivities than I have in Manchester. I feel that Professor Adshead's book is superficial and bereft of that penetration and sympathy which one has a right to expect from so intellectual an authority." This judgment seems a little hard on Professor Adshead, as all the actual quotations that the speaker made, though apparently from the Pro- fessor's book, arc substantially from my first Spectator article. But this speaker would not long let Babbitt dominate, and later made some very sensible remarks about smoke abatement and civic decency. Not so the Hull Daily Mail. Here Babbitt is very severe and judicial. The question which the Spectator has asked is " lamentable." " The writer cannot have been in the city of recent years, else such a calumnious query could not have entered his head, and if this be so, then is it not pertinent to ask why the Editor of a journal of such standing as the Spectator allowed the city's name to figure so prominently and so disparagingly in an article bearing a sub-title ` Our Squalid Towns?' Strength is given to the belief that the writer knows nothing about the city by a qualifying sentence at the end of his article, ' supposing Hull has made an effort.' If he wants the answer at first hand, let him come to see, and compare the centre of Hull now with the plans showing what it was three decades ago. Nay, let him espy the fine roads which approach the Corporation boundaries and compare them with those in existence less than one decade ago." I am to be shown the Guildhall, too, and my mentor is to " drive into " me " the fact that in but few provincial cities shall I see such a pile of Portland stone."
My " grievance against England " is then lamented. But almost my worst crime has been apparently to suppose that there has been a change in people's attitude about towns of late. " The ' stirring' has been evident in Hull sufficiently long for anyone who has attained such status that he is entitled to write for the Spectato7 to know of it, if he had taken an ordinarily intelligent interest in modern progress."
But I have done the citizens of Hull a service by making them realize that such " crass ignorance " exists. Hull is a home town " as much as any business or commercial centre in the kingdom." Though it is tempting, I must not continue, but only add that I propose to ask the Hull Daily Mail to show me the city at the first opportunity.
The Yorkshire Post's subtle plea is most ingenious, and suggests not a change in Leeds but a change in fashion. " May it not be that in time to come enlighten- Ment will further extend, and that distant critics, who shrink from a day's leisure in the places they castigate, may see in smoky towns something more penetrating and subtle than just regions of ' dreary gloom' ? Beauty, after all, is in the beholder." On the other hand the Yorkshire Observer informs us that in Leeds the City Square has " statues of the goddesses of the seasons and the more sober statues of the city's famous men." Naturally what troubles one in all these somewhat irate comments is not the local patriotism they display. That, indeed, is only the outward and visible sign of that civic sense which it. has been hoped to discover. It is a most valuable sentiment, for without it the motive power for improvement would be lacking. But what is so deplorable is to see the channels into which this (pace the Hull Daily Mail) newly-awakened enthusiasm for the " home town " is flowing. For it can be directed in either of two ways. It can act as the power which can transform our industrial towns into places fit to be the nurseries of our children, to stand as the adequate monuments of the British race, or—and this alternative is so much easier—it can be devoted to the " boosting " of the town as it is. If Leeds is not perfect, the false creed runs, let us not try to improve it but let us cry aloud that it cannot be improved upon.
But in many of the instances here quoted we are not even engaged in an interchange of helpful or sensible words. Leeds' talk of " outside critics," Glasgow's or Bradford's indignant defence boils down to a reiteration of largely meaningless generalizations and town-boosting " slogans." There is here no sober discussion, no state- ment even (except in the Yorkshire Post) of the case for " Smokeover." However, most helpful and even amusing things have been said in many quarters—in several instances in the very organs with which I have here ventured to disagree, and I hope later to have more to say of our many supporters, especially of some pawky and pertinent Scottish comments. But to-day the town of Leicester must serve as solace.
One of Babbitt's chief characteristics—whatever may be his nationality—is that he knows no country but his own. That is one of the things which make it such a relief to turn to Leicester, a town by no means perfect, but one that instinctively judges itself and other things by general and not by local achievements. Leicester has a European standard. It is not, for instance, self-satisfied because it has less smoke than Bradford, but uneasily holds meetings because it is smokier than Essen. It strikes the stranger as wonderfully smoke-free. There are good new buildings in it. Its inhabitants are intellectually alert, very serious, and possess a really extraordinary thirst for good education and good lettering.
In a very English way Leicester chooses to carry on most of its activities just beside the official channels, and this leads to some of the town's most curious con- tradictions. Like other English manufacturing towns it is faced with the usual problems—a fortuitous, unplanned, hugger-mugger collection of mid-Victorian streets. With one hand the citizens of Leicester are to-day straightening out and improving this city. Fine, intelligently-designed shops and factories are being built, the smoke evil has been checked, the city's historical or beautiful ancient buildings are being acquired for the public, and a real standard of taste is being set up in all sorts of arts and crafts. This is being done generally through unofficial societies and individuals, while on the other hand the Corporation unashamedly builds eighteen-seventy tram shelters in spiky cast-iron and dumps the city's rubbish on a triangle of terraceland which lies between the river, a children's playground, and the tower's chief historical monument. I was told that only a third of the voters polled at the last municipal elections. What makes this sort of thing particularly odd is that sometimes the Leicester spirit does use the official machinery—for instance, in the matter of lettering. Here the town profited and learnt from Mr. Fletcher, the head of the art and technical school, and the result of his teaching is very striking.. Leicester has a shoe factory, cane chair works, a wine merchant's, and one, if not two, printing works where every bit of lettering is good, while over nearly every shop in the town the name is up in a type that helps to make harmony out of an architectural jumble.
As to amusements, Leicester's open spaces give quite good facilities for games, but are not well laid out. A great deal of good music, amateur and professional, is to be heard in the hall owned by the Corporation, and though the theatre is the haunt of the " second-class tour," there is much intelligent amateur dramatic activity. As for lectures, there are almost too many, and I was thankful to be told on leaving Leicester that instead of visiting night schools and lectures it would have been possible to dance in the evening or even to go and see Rudolph Valentino. But it was a pleasure and a refreshment to sec a town where in all things, from leatherwork to infant welfare, the leading citizens, in failure or success, had in mind a European rather than a Midland standard.
Adult people use their brains in Leicester, and the younger people seem to be following in the same path, with their active, well-taught schools. The result on the life of the town is astonishing. So vigorous a life will not be long before it shapes itself a really worthy setting.
Previous page
