Norwich bulletin., 1918-09-13
CLEANED FROM FOREIGN EXCHANGES

It is no secret that many great houses in Mayfair, Belsravia, and Bloomsbury have passed into the tenn porary occupation of men and soldiers from the uttermost parts of the earth" Their flags proclaim the fact,
 and when there is not a flag over the
 roof there is often a brass plate on
 the door. Only by going inside how
 ever. does one get a full sense of the
 new world sitting down in ease at the
 hearthstones Of the old.
 There are houses in Belgravia where
 18th century family portraits gaze
 down on Americans dictating letters on
 war business; and as you amuse your self with the contrast between the ! modern girl in her short -skirted uni form and the dead ladies who so per sistently find a marble pedestal to rest their arms on, you cannot help won dering what the pictures think Of it all Does the click c1ack of the type writer disturb their dignified rapose? And do they understand that these men in raitnent Of sand color are in no immediate danger when they say l they are ''tickled 10 death?" But it | is in Bloomsbury that the clash of the ! centuries seems to cffer most risk; for /, an old Bloomsbury house always sug- &SSlS Akl1t .JUHflSDA -IIdy Heth NiHllSN 1 it. If he should look in some fine night l in ghostly guise to see the ways of | men nowadays, how vindictively he might haunt the rolltop decks of our l visitors. He never could appreciate | the American point of view.
 Mayfair is the clubland of the Do- i minions and the United States. Here, ] also, is the headquarters of the Be yond Seas" association, open day and night for the reception of officers. The 1 arrangements to entertain them during 1 their leaVe-the club or private house | they will sleep at, the country house | they may visit, the sights they can 1 see-are carried out in quite romantic l surroundings in Grosvenor street 1 Horace WalpOle, at any rate would
 have thought them the visual embodi- l ment of romance The large entfance l hall might belong to a medieval castle l made very comfortable. Thence you go through a creditable imitation of a cloister, which looks on an enclosed garden where geraniums flower in for | nal beds, and eventually arrive in 8 long chamber that would serve as the | refectory of a luxurious monastery oI 1 Abbey of Thelema. In an adjoining | waiting room you may fancy you ] have arrived at the Toledo or Seville 1 of a summer days dream, the mos private apartment of a castle in Spain J There is nothing to break the spell;
 not a sound penetrates from outer London Horace Walpole would b.
 writing a new Castle of Otranto' be
 fore he was here five minutes. And Indeed, the Thelenites seated rounS
 the table in the refectory are doing, al Rabelais planned, just what they lik' most; that is to say, they are devisini
 means to make things pleasant fo overseas officers in the several club in the ,neighborhood. These are tn
 American club at g Chesterfield gar
 dens. the Canadian club at 3 Chester
 l field gardens. the New Zealand clul at B Hill street, the South Africal and Rhodesian club at 48 Grosveno } square. The Australian club is a littl
 farther off, at 13S Piccadiliy. At mos f of these places the original owner have left their pictures on the wall - and pretty things about. No attemp
 has been made to pack up before let ' ting in the newcomers.
 But the signal triumph of this "a e we were" hospitality Hes elsewhere an ] makes a pleasant tale. Lady Hid q Murray and Sir Ernest Hatch, the in
 spring and organizing spirits of tn a l Beyond Seas" organization, wer : struck some time ago by the though :. that they had left somebody out. Thi somebody was the overseas woman s the wife of the overseas officer, an
 she who had come to England to nurs 8 or do other war work. At this mo @ ment," they told themselves, "she n sitting in lodgings, wanting eompan ienship. longing perhaps for somethin
 1 to brighten her dull leisure hours ', They resolved that she. too. must hay Il a club, and that it must be a cIu If worthy of England. The Duchess = Norfolk helped them to attain the o ambition. She offered Norfolk hous
 in St. James square on two condition r first, that no rent should be pai i, and, secondly, that all the pictures ar treasures of every kind should remai Il On these gracious terms the Roy l. Club for Ladies from Beyond u
 Seas' was founded and opened, and y is without doubt the most wonderf d in London. In no other can the men
 bers read or sit in silence. talk T. 1 listen to lectures and concerts, srnel II and amuse themselves according Q their desires, amid furniture with 2
 artistic and historic interest beyor