Evening star., 1941-11-16

damaged houses all over London and
the Workmen were not stopping to
take Sundays off. Concrete abut-
ments had replaced sandbagging in
front of many buildings. In some,
the first floor windows had been
bricked in.
But most damaged buildings had
been left to stand as they were, their
blackened windows gaping, their
doors sealed by the London County
Council with legal fair-w warning that
they were unsafe for occupancy
They did not look very frightening
Just slightly depressing. The sight
of them simply reminded you of
what had happened. Empty build
ings are not as dramatic as bombs
falling.
Traffic Rolls Again.
The London streets are full OF
traffic again and the blackout is not
quite so black. You can always get
a taxi.
You cannot always get a table in
night club or in the restaurant of
fashionable hotel. The hotels are
very crowded because the rationing
is much Stricter than it was and
somewhat more complicated. so that
rich women who do not like to be
bothered have moved into the hotels
and keep them full. There are
many more Americans in London
than there were and they play soft
ball in ST. James Park on Sunday
afternoons. Quite a crowd gathers.
The night clubs are kept full by men
on leave and the girls with them are
very pretty and very chic.
You cannot buy clothes in London
without a coupon book now, and
food is noticeably scarcer than last
year. Even in the best hotels you
can only get an egg a week for
breakfast and the portions of butter
and sugar are smaller than they
were. Your breakfast is likely to be
oatmeal, two halves of a tomato,
fried, and the head of an enormous
black mushroom. You will eat fish
instead of meat and if you get sau-
sages they will be so per cent bread
crumbs. The rice pudding for des-
sert will not satisfy your sweet tooth.
The Real Stuff?
People talk more about the short
age of cigarettes. Many stores sell
them only on certain days or to old
custumers. You can rarely get the
same brand twice. Matches are even
scarcer I was told that whisky was
short and that what you could get
was not the real stuff. MY hotel had
enough. 1t tasted alright.
The shopping streets Of London
have long since adapted themselves
to the changed world and display
their wares in little cubicles cut out
of the boarded up store windows.
War posters have been stuck up
everywhere. The striking thing
is how few of them sound a call to
arms. All the war posters in Eng
land talk about now is work.
Public Feeling Changing.
She worked in Beaverbrook' S office
of aircraft production. One night
a friend of hers. who looks like an
Italian, drove her home with several
others in a large and shiny car
When they almost collided with a
cyclist and stopped to apologize, a
crowd collected and began making
remarks about the car Then some
once noticed how dark -complexioned
the driver was and cried out: Its a
dirty foreigner!"
The women pulled my friend out
Of the front seat and tore her coat
off. There was policeman a few
feet away but he was very young
and didn't appear to know what to
do about such things. Except for
the crack about the driver being a
foreigner the crowd brought no
specific charge. 1t seemed to my
friend to be simply bad tempered.
angry without knowing quite what
about. 1t kept milling about the
cars occupants and pulling at them
until my friend fought her way
back into the car and took the wheel
herself and drove out through it
The only cries she can remember
were:
I'VE work, we do!" and Lock the
dirty foreigners up!"
Little incidents like that are COM
mon in London now. heard of sew
| eral others Londoners call such
demonstrations Bolshie, word they
use, think, when they mean an
archist.
Communists on Band Wagon.
These demonstrations have moth.
ing to do with the Communists. who
are very busy elsewhere. The Com
munHts are busy trying to stay or
the band wagon of aid to Russia. Ir
a cartoon. you would picture then
hanging on to cornice of the bano
wagon, reaching up and trying tt
grab the reinS. There are so many
people on the drivers seat itself thai
you cannot tell who holds the reins
The aid-to-Russia movement II
England is enormous. There ar,
meetings all over the country-ir
little villages and in big trade unior
halls, under social auspices or spon
sored by the church. The news
papers are swept along in its wake
in almost as much danger of beini
lost in the shuttle as the Commu
mist party. English newspaper ed
itors and reporters, American cor
respondents, officers in the army AM
politicians-theya all talk to me abou
it. 1t has drive and momentum. tn
Communists started it, but almos
Immediately it set something of IL
the British soul-something hlghl,
explosive that frightens the British
politicians little.
What I believe it set of was thu
enormous frustrated desire OF tn
British to get at their enemies ant
kill them.