A Description of the Offices of The Strand Magazine.
ISITORS to these offices have expressed so much interest, and letters of inquiry have so constantly reached us from those who are unable to come themselves, that we think no apology is needed for the following brief description of the work involved in producing The Strand Magazine and its fellow publications.
The offices of "The Strand Magazine."
As one makes toward Covent Garden from the Strand, the most noticeable building in Southampton Street is seen to be the establishment of George Newnes, Limited. Its fine, broad front, wherein the architect has with a just hand distributed the red brick and white stone in the parts above the stone ground floor, stretches through four numbers on the right-hand side of the street, and the building is carried, in depth, through to Exeter Street, wherein stands a large "back front," as architects quaintly term it, itself of good dimension and appearance. It is at this "back front" that the heavy work of sale, cartage, cranage and general in-take and out-go is carried on.
Between these two fronts lies much of interest—most of it open to inspection by the general public. In Southampton Street, a handsome, triple entrance stands between large plate-glass windows. Through the windows on the right, the curious may observe certain of the packing operations incidental to the issuing forth of The Strand Magazine, Tit-Bits, the Million, and the bound volumes published by the firm. The windows on the left admit light to the counting house. The counting-house one reaches by the left door. It is a spacious room, fitted and furnished in a handsome but business-like fashion, the ceiling decorated in various pale tints, and all the woodwork—counters, partitions, doorframes and so forth of mahogany. A very large double-doored safe, many brass desk-rails, certain telephone fittings, and various heavy account books combine to suppress the lighter suggestions of the elegant electric lights and the few wall pictures. Parts of this large room are partitioned off, including the sanctum of Mr. A. H. Johnson, the secretary to the firm, who is to be seen in the illustration talking to a visitor across the counter.
A door from this room takes one into the ground-floor corridor, leading direct from the central entrance. Here one chooses between the staircase on the right or the lift on the left. On the first floor, in the fore part of the building to the right, doors lead to the rooms in the more immediate occupation of Mr. Newnes. The chief of these, the sanctum sanctorum, is a large, pleasant room, something over thirty feet in length, with windows from which one looks into Southampton Street, over rows of flowers which stand upon the sills. The mural cover-
