Messrs. Hudson Brothers have promised, in a letter to Wednesday's
Times, to withdraw the sky-sign on Ludgate Hill which is said to interfere with the view of St. Paul's Cathedral, though they themselves strenuously deny that there is any point of view, either in Fleet Street or Ludgate Hill, from which their sign is seen against the facade of St. Paul's Cathedral. Still, they admit frankly that if their example were followed by other firms in their neighbourhood, there would be a very serious interference with one of the finest architectural views in London, a consideration which, they say, had not occurred to them at the time they put up their sign. They magnani- mously consent, therefore, to sacrifice the cost of putting up their sky-sign, and to remove it, rather than set the business houses in the neighbourhood a bad example which might result in injuring the effect of Sir Christopher Wren's noble structure. That is very sagacious of Messrs. Hudson Brothers, as well as public-spirited. In place of the sky-sign, they will get the reputation of being one of the most dis- interested firms in London, one of the most sensible of the duty of preserving intact the greater aesthetic effects of the English capital. A more skilful substitution of a sign written in the minds of the English people, for a sign thrown out in relief against their sky, cannot easily be conceived.
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