This episode in the WONDERFUL LONDON series of shorts from 1924 offers us a bargee's view of the city. We see canals of London from the perspective of a barge carrying 85 tons -- or perhaps, this being England, that's 'tonnes' -- of coal pulled by a horse, from the Limehouse docks to Paddington Basin. In its course, the canal snakes under the city, past the zoo, and indeed, over and under railroads, and under a river; that last makes little sense to me, but there it is. It's mostly unnoticed, one of the heavily traveled side roads, like the Underground rumbling by. The city dwellers know it's there, but unless they need to use it themselves, it's just another unnoticed utility.
this one is not as full of beauty and whimsy as the other entries in the 1924 city, but it holds a fascination for people like me. London is an old city, built in fits and starts ever since the Romans set up camp near a small village more than two thousand years ago. To an American, that's ancient. To a European that's not particularly old. It's estimated that Jericho has been inhabited for more than six thousand years. Still, it's long enough for a lot of essential things to become forgotten except by the people who use them, and unnoticed by those who do.