Evening star., 1940-12-21
Large Part Of London
Has Been Evacuated
Without Stampede
Business as UsuuI Still
Motto os City Spreads
All Over Island
(Sirth of a SerieS.)
BY MILO NJ. THOMPSON,

BY MILO NJ. THOMPSON,
Associated Press Stan Writer
NEW YORK, Dec. 21.-There has
been substantial evacuation of
London since blitzkrieg began-cOm-
pletely without stampede,
At no time has there been any line
of hysterical refugees stringing along
the highways, their household goods
piled in carts, their mattresses atop
the family car. At no time has
London ceased to do its business at
the old stand
Trains buses and taxicabs have
all the business they can handle
as the people 60 back and forth to
work and shop and guard their
property.
But the fact remains that large
percentage of London's population
has been dumped on the English
countryside outside the London area
and the countryside finds it can
scarcely contain it.
All you have to do to prove the
point is try to rent a fiat, house
vi CNCll iOOlll III liIV
interior of the island. Hotels will
tell you they are booked full. Real
estate agents will laugh in your
face. You can go from door to door
with no better luck.
To be sure. the situation in the
country is not wholly due to the
exodus from London.
Army Adds to Problem.
The Army has complicated the
situation by communicating all
manner of small hotels and other
large buildings for winter billeting
purposes. A couple of million men
under arms, many of them imported
from the far reaches of the empire
and from the lands of occupied
allies. can affect considerably such
. situation, of course.
Londoners. nevertheless, are the
biggest factor in the jam.
First there we're hundreds of
thousands of evacuated children
those children I used to see lined
up on railway platforms wearing
bie poSS. AllCll illtlC WClc lIlell
mothers, and the mothers to be.
and the lame. aged and blind, all
removed and billeted in more or less
orderly fashion and on a more or
less voluntary basis by the govern
ment itself.
Then there was the exodus of
schools. Most of the private schools
In the London area found quarters
far away from the bombed areas.
They took over unoccupied man
sions or big resort hotels. Some of
them took clusters of ordinary
houses.
Clerical Workers Moved.
Behind them came large num-
Der of purely clerical departments
Of London firms They were GUS
todians of duplicate records in some
cases, providing reserve Offices in
the event headquarters ''in town"
should be bombed out. Certain
small insurance and accounting
outfits moved bodily to the small
villages for the duration. Govern
ment departments themselves set
up many provincial Offices This
movement began before lombard
ment was an actuality.
The trek gained great impetus,
however, in the early weeks of the
rain of bombs. 1t had become i'm
mediately apparent to most of busl-
ness that there would be dis
astrous letdown in employe eff
cheney and grave danger to employe
health unless arrangements could
be made for getting employees very
frequently outside the zone of noise
and nervousness for revitalizing
sleep. The big companies began to
establish employe rest houses.
I suspect, however, it was a drain
Of quite another character which
has lost London for the present a
very large percentage of its citi-
zenry. I base the suspicion upon
what has happened to people in my
own little circle of friends.
Many Go to Safer Places.
An army colonel, for example,
came to me early in the blitz to
discuss the possibility of sending his
wife and small son to America.
Said he: Il do not know what
We may be in for, but am in the
army and I have two sons in the
services We are willing to give our
lives for England. 1t seems logical
and in no way unpatriotic to safe
guard the youngest boy and keep
our stock alive And 1 believe his
mother should go with him" That
argument also has been potent in
moving wives and young children
to the safer parts of England.
A next-door neighbor of mine was
. kind, motherly woman who lived
alone. Her husband died of ma
tural illness in September, 1899.
Some months later her only COM
panion. her daughter. was married
and had to follow her husband to
service posts Even her aged pet
dog died. There was no reason why
she should remain in a bombarded
area. so she went to live with
friends in the country.
London All Over England.
Ny daughters school chum lived
down the street with her widowed
mother. The mother is an English
woman who married a Canadian
soldier in the previous war, followed
him in Canada, but returned home
after his death some years ago to
live on an income at home with her
two daughters. One married. She
held on at home with the other un-
til the blitz was weeks old and a
bomb had fallen in her front yard
Finally she asked herself why she
was remaining in London to risk
death or to become possible liabil-
ity.
So she went to the other side of
the island.
I know two bankers whose wives
are living together in a west coun-
try hotel. The husbands keep up
the family apartments "in town."
know several British journalists
who have sent their wives out of
u