The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-03
Lady Mary Is Shocked By
 English Girls War Spirit
By LADY MARY

still has home of any size to keep up proposes closing all unnecessary sit ting rooms, drawing rooms and dining rooms and just keeping open one great big living room, thus obviating the necessary for extra fires. Very few private houses in London, even of con siderable size, rejoice in such a modern convenience as central heating They have always relied upon numerous lgreat blazing fires of wood of coal, or both. which are kept continually fed by various servants. Nowadays, serv- ants are at as low an ebb in number as coal is in quantity, therefore the situation has to be tackled from an other position and the fashionable lhousekeeper is greatly perturbed as ! to the state of the temperature beneath her own rooftree during the coming winter.
 II am told that the beautiful Wis., countess Curzon who has a charming house in Mount street, is keeping one ibig room open on the first floor, which she will use as dining room, sitting room dancing room and studio. She has removed all except the most neces- 1 tsary furniture, taken up the carpets, had the floor polished and thickly cov- cred with rugs that can easily be rolled sup. Her dining table is at one end of I the long apartment and her piano and ' a gramophone at the other There are a few chairs, and an immense number |of cushions are placed on the floor around the big open fireplace One Large electric light of fairly high pow
 err has been slung from the ceiling. In ithis room she proposes to give all her
 entertainmentsSo quite simple char lacter during the winter. She is one of lthe hostesses who prophecy that no, home or hotel will be complete without dancing this winter, for the simple treason thay lit is the one form of town exercise that is bound to keep you
 warm and in good health. am bound
 to say that.I think her words will come true; certainly unless the gulf stream is particularly kind to us during the next four or five months there will not beg hat time in the old town" as far las the heating arrangements are conAl cerned
 Miss Elizabeth Asquith is very busy nowadays keeping shop in Old Bond/ lstreet. It is not always that the ana
 teur storekeeper meets with any great success but the daughter of the ex prime minister is able to turn over l about $10,000t q week owing to her -ef- forts as 2 saleswoman; therefore, one lean imagine that she regards trade. l lfrom very optimistic point of view. 1t is just as we'll to mention sperhapt J that Miss Asquith is not entirely. re- lgardings her shop as a self-supporting
 Institution. As a matter of fact it is
 one of the many most successfultsources iof income by which the British Red
 Cross is able to join with it's American
 land French sister organizations in help.
 ling to win the war &s
 Miss Asauths shop as the season
 advances will undoubtedly be "the" I place where fashion will congregate in ! order to blV Christmas presents. As
 all the articles displayed for sale havs
 been given by thousands of people 1t , Is very likely that many individuals
 will have the unique opportunity of
 buying back, should they want to do
 so. their own presentsx also the trink- cts that we have coveted when belong
 ing to someone else may now become
 our property and thus fulfill some dear
 wish that we have longed for in other days Miss Asquith and her assistant
 shopkeeper. Mrs Level have a small
 staff working With them, who are pro- fessional buyers as we'll as sellers and Il the whole place is carried on in busi- ness like style that is highly con-
 mendable. All these ladies wear n
 chai ming uniform of grey cashmere with powder blue "overalls' and long l-sleevesS A certain number of the stalf are experts who decide whether the
 many articles of jewelry, silverware
 and gold odds and ends can be most
 profttably sold or will be more remu nerative if melted down. The mel"
 is then put aside in a room devoted to the purpose. while the other articles are taken into the stockroom, which . at the Drese~. 't-,a has a collection worth about $50.000.
 As I was passing along the other ! day saw Miss Asquith in her blue overall worn with a becoming littl,
 blue can huslv engaged in dressing one of the w;rdows She was arranr-
 ing large auantitN of quaint old siI-