The Municipal Buildings deserve all the praise they have
received. The special staircase, which is used only on state occasions,
presents from point to point a marvellously proportioned medley of arches
and pillars and arcades, with a dominant Corinthian note. It is really
"frozen music." And when adorned with tropical plants and lit up with
electric lights and pretty faces, it must indeed be a superb sight. Very
imposing, too, is the vast Banqueting Hall, from whose platform, to test
the acoustic effect of the rows of wires stretched six inches apart under
the ceiling to break the sound, I addressed vacancy. The panels of this
hall still await their artists. 'T is a rare opportunity for Glasgow to
emulate the Parisian Pantheon; and, indeed, there is so much art-work to
be done in Glasgow that one begins to understand why it is threatening to
become the capital of British Art. The best road in Scotland is no longer
that which leads to England. It was curious for a humble author to walk
these stately halls, convoyed by courteous officers in red swallow-tails,
and to rub shoulders with civic millionaires. An awesome air of wealth
hung over the men and the place, a crushing suggestion of vast
enterprises, of engineering and railway building and the running of
steamers, a subtle aroma of colossal fortunes, wrested from the world by
the leverage of an initial half-crown.
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