SMILES RARE IN LONDON

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 1210, 3 December 1919, Page 3

SMILES RARE IN LONDON

Where are all the smiling faces gone which now, -with peace at hand, ought to be making our streets cheerful (write* "0.W." in the 'Daily Expresu')? It is hard to remember anything-clearly, before the war,;,l>u£ .-.surely, then" there was a smile to be seen in Oxford ifcroet, ? ha.ppy face m Piccadilly, a serene brow m the Strand. I cannot find them now. The other day I deliberately set out to find a smile,.mi. London, My search wae a long and sad one. It was a fine morning, so I drew Kensington Gardens first, feeling sure that a spring morning in that, lovely oasia would give me what I wanted. Not at all. Everybody I saw was hurrying eastward with a. determined scowl or a look of nervous abstraction, as if the only hopo of escaping damnation was for them to reach Hyde Park corner by 9 o'clock. I looked in at my club for a moment only to 1» grimly greeted! by tiie hall porter, and to find .Major Boffin regarding me suspiciously as if "I was about to steal 'The Times' from him. "This is no go," I said to myself. "Let us try the ladies of Bond street,, flitting among the fashions." Not a bit of it. Their hps were set firm, and their eyes were hard; the corners of their mouths were turned down, and there, was weariness in their cheeks.

"The town is no good," I reflected;" lot me try the suburbs." So t took tho tube to llampstead. The passengers in . the tube nearly sent me home in deep despair. With renewed, hope T tiied the Heath. ,Tli.e happiness of Nature- all round the Yale of Health was almost intoxicating, but not one human face reflected it. All were dull or tiled or cross. I could have cried. Wo were never a strikingly beautiful race, but at least we looked a cheerful one. Now we are neither beautiful nor cheerful. I walked home, peering into faces, surprising glances, wistfully anticipating smiles which never came. Within sight of home I turned' wearily up a back street. There I saw three dirty-looking urchins playing cricket with an old broom handle and an infinitesimal ball. All were grinning broadly. Thank Heaven. T found a jolly face at last.