(_Being a letter from a cloistered lady visiting London to her sister in
the Shires._)
My dear Ruth,--Beginning at the beginning, let me tell you that you must at
once go to the station to inquire how it is that they forced me to pay
thirty shillings for my ticket, instead of one pound. Although the price
one pound is printed on the ticket, I couldn't get it until I had paid ten
shillings extra. There was no time to get a proper explanation, so I want
you to do so. Very likely it is sheer blackmail by that man in the
booking-office, whom I never cared for. You had better see the
station-master about it.
The next thing I want to tell you is that most of our ideas of London are
wrong. You remember how we used to be told about its wonderful lighting at
night, and the comfort of its hotels, and the bright shops, and the crowds
of taxis, and so on. Well, this isn't true at all. So far from being
well-lighted, I assure you that our few little streets and market square
are a blaze compared with this city. Some streets here are absolutely dark,
and even in the great thoroughfares there is so little light that crossing
the road is most perilous. The thing could be put right in a moment if they
would only see to it that the lamps were cleaned; I looked closely at
several of them and I could see exactly what was wrong--a coat of grimy
stuff has accumulated on the glass. Now to get this off would be quite
easy, but it does not seem to have occurred to anyone to do it. I suppose
that London is very badly managed; and here again I think the advantage
lies with us, for I am certain that our District Council would never allow
such a state of things. Probably the LORD MAYOR is lazy.
The funny thing is that there is plenty of good light, only they don't know
how to apply it. Every night, directly it begins to be dark, great streams
of light are turned on from all parts of the city; but would you believe
it, they are directed, not downwards so that they could illumine the
street, but upwards into the empty sky! If the Chairman of our District
Council could see this, how he would laugh! I wish you would tell him.
Then there is coal. I went, as we arranged, first to the Jerusalem Hotel,
but it was like ice. When I asked the hotel people why the central heating
was not on, they said that there is no coal. At least it seems that there
is coal, but no one to deliver it. Just think of our coal-merchant
returning such a reply to us when the cellar was getting empty. But in
London they seem to be ready to put up with any excuse. Why the men who
ought to deliver the coals are not made to, I can't imagine. Anyhow, as I
was freezing, I moved into lodgings, where there is coal, although an
exorbitant price is asked for each scuttle.
The great topic of conversation everywhere has been some new speculation
called the War Loan, and I have to confess that as it is so well spoken of
and is to pay the large dividend of 5-1/4 per cent. I have arranged to invest
something for each of us in it. I don't know who the promoter--a Mr. BONAR
LAW--is, but it would be awful for us if he turned out to be a JABEZ
BALFOUR in disguise. Still, nearly all investment is a gamble, and we can
only hope for the best. He must have some peculiar position or the papers
would not support his venture as they do; and there is even a campaign of
public speakers through the country, I am told, taking his prospectus as
their text and literally imploring the people to invest. Quite like the
South Sea Bubble we read of in MACAULAY; but please Heaven it won't turn
out to be another.
I asked the landlady here about it, but she knew nothing, except that her
family could not afford to put anything in. "But your daughters earn very
good money," I said. "That's true," she replied, "but all that they have
over after their clothes, poor girls, they spend on the theatre or the
pictures; and I'm glad to think they can do so. I wouldn't grudge them
their pleasures, not I."
Judging by the crowded state of all the myriad places of entertainment in
this city there are millions who are like them. But I couldn't help
thinking that if so much money seems really to be needed, and this Mr. LAW
is really a public benefactor, it might not be a bad idea to try to divert
some of the thousands of pounds being paid every day in London alone for
sheer amusement. Of course if England had the misfortune to be at war most
of these places would naturally be shut up.
By the way, Germans are strangely unpopular in London just now. I have
heard numbers of people, all in different places, such as the Tube and
omni-buses and tea-shops, using very strong terms about them. It has been
quite a series of coincidences.