BRISTOL.*
Ma. A. L. Salmon knows and loves his Bristol and its setting well—too well, perhaps, to be a quite satisfactory guide to anyone less partial than himself. He is over-kind. He sees the scars and squalors of the place through a golden haze of romance (so far as he allows himself to see them at all), whilst we are wafted by his enthusiasm from one vantage point to another to view• the smoky glories of this or that without pause to remark the architectural black- guardisms of our own generation and the last, or the mean and dirty streets that so discredit the city. Still, unless one write in the spirit of The Legends of Smolteover, this romantic and optimistic treatment of our dismal places seems to be inevitable, and Bristol has certain literary and historical associations which can make it attractive enough to read about. However, the ordinary working citizen cannot (unfortunately) subsist on such intangibles, and we have seen little in Bristol to promote optimism in him.
We forgive Mr. Charles Marriott for glossing Bristol's blemishes because he writes charmingly as a novelist. We must also condone Mr. Salmon's part in this conspiracy of silence because a guide, no doubt, must have some pride and enthusiasm to be tolerable. It might, however, be better for the sick towns of England—and they are mostly sick—if someone would write about them quite brutally, as they really are ; not as they have been, or might have been, or as we would like to think of them. But then, if our author went prying down the unclean side-streets and round the ragged fringes of the town instead of decorously concentrating on the remains of the fifteenth-century Butter Cross, his book would be dreary indeed, and few of us would care to read it. Though senti- mental, Mr. Salmon's book is not uninteresting, and most of his dips into the past are justified by their interest. We hear how the once beautiful Queen Square was sacked in
• Bristol : City. Suburbs and Countryside. By Arthur L. Salmon. London; The Distal Times and Mirro.
the Reform Bill riots of 1831, in which the riverside Irish were not behindhand
Forty-one of the Square's fine houses were destroyed, Including the Mansion and Custom Houses ; and while these buildings were being burned and pillaged, crowds of rabble on the green were maddening themselves with the best wines looted from the cellars. This is not the place in which to speak of the destruction of the Bishop's Palace and the narrow escape of the Cathedral itself. Some of the mob themselves perished in the flames of houses whose contents they were pilfering ; others later were cut down around the statue of King William. The whole was a. miserable story of weakness and mismanagement."
Also, in the light of recent discussions on " Bridge Houses," it is interesting to learn that the old bridge over the Avon at Bristol was paid for and maintained by the revenues from the highly-rented houses of the wealthy merchants that stood upon it. When these houses were destroyed and a new " open " bridge was built in the eighteenth century, a city house-tax and shipping dues had to be imposed, as well as tolls, to meet the costs.
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