"Charing Cross."

Charing Cross is the centre of life and activity in the great metropolis of London. The origin of the name has been a matter of dispute. The word has been supposed to be a corruption of "La chere Reine" (The dear Queen), inscribed on a cross erected at this spot by Edward I., King of England, to the memory of his beloved wife, Queen Eleanor.

It is found, however, that in that particular part of London, thirty years prior to this event, there was a village named Cheringe, probably of Saxon origin, from charan (to bend), both river and road there making a curve. Possibly, then, the village name is the true source of the name, "Charing Cross." The cross of Caean stone built there by Edward I. was pulled down by the Long Parliament in 1647. A reproduction of the cross in its original dimensions has been recently erected in front of the railway station.

Charing Cross was selected as the place for the execution of the Cromwellian Regicides; a statue of Charles I. had been erected there in 1633, but in the Civil War, Parliament sold it to a brazier, with strict orders for its destruction. The artisan, however, secretly buried the statue, and after the Restoration, it came to light again in 1667, and was set up in its present position.