EDNA LYALL
To the befogged Londoner there is perhaps no greater treat than to escape for forty-eight hours to the seaside even in the depths of winter, and whilst spinning along by the London, Brighton, and South Coast express, there is a pleasurable sense of excitement in the feeling that you are going to breathe the fresh sea air of Eastbourne untainted by smuts and smoke. "The Empress of watering-places," as a well-known journalist has named it, is now seen in its best aspect. It presents quite a different phase in August and September, when the residents, almost to a man, desert the town, having previously with great prudence let their houses at a high figure, and the place is given over to the holiday-makers, nigger minstrels, braying bands, and itinerant beach preachers. Now its genial, pleasant society is in full swing, and merry golf parties are the order of the day. Few places have increased with more rapid growth during the last fifteen or twenty years, or become more popular as a residence than Eastbourne, partly owing to the excellent train service, partly to the well-organised supervision over every detail in the whole town, and again probably more to the bright, healthy
