OUR LONDON LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 128, 30 May 1914, Page 13

OUR LONDON LETTER.

TOPICS OF THE DAY.----i From Our Special Correspondent); LONDON". April 17. AN IDEAL EASTER.

Weather memory is notoriou.lv unreliable, or one might he found declaring that the Easter holidays of 1014 were, the lines) wo have had for a score of years in the 01,1 Country. Without going so far as that, one may at any rate say that the lon,- days" holiday 'season just overpast was one of the very pka-san-.est within niemorv. i"„r tl.'e best part of daylight hour- ne had brilliant sunshine, and taking il on the whole the holidays gave us four of the most gladsome days April lias ever „; V( , n lw at Eastertide. They not "only afforded healthy relaxation and pleasure to millions whom rain ane! gloomy skies would li.-ive depressed, hut they produced a really m i rvellou.- eli'c.-: on the spring growth, clothing Mother Earth's drab self wilh a garment of gloriously fresh green verdure w'ni.h v.,i.. a delight to the eve even where it w.i. not spangled with liie 'say tin:- of springtime's flowers. The pod's declaration :o the effect, that "it's sweet t.i li" in Kuglund now liieit April'- here." came irresistibly to mind, aml for oiue in ; , w.u- one was in cor.li.il agreement with him. And for on.-c in a way. also, you .-n'.il.l nuder-si.-.nd wii.il people mean when they say liiut ••London is clip;;.." Easter, of e-our.-e-. brought its usu:i] invasion from tiie coniiii-y and from the Continent — probably 11 miie-ii bigger invasion than cvr before- but the exodus must have beaten all precious records by many, many 1 luiu-an,!,-. in spile' of the sinister feire-eii:-'... of the '.'. ,vi l her- v. i-c gentlemen who profc-s lo foretell the moods in which we shall prc-cntly lind Jupiter i riuvius iinel Ruele Boreas. Londoners arc certainly beginning to recognise how ca-v it is to get out of London, and are taking fill ajvi (ago ~f the futilities for travel which have developed wiih such amazing rapidity in.the last few years. Tlic vast extension of London's raotor'hti- radius has created quite a new travelling pitbli,'. and people with a few hours to spare, who would never have dreamed of trying to snatch a breath of country air. had its attainment depended on a irain journey, are nowadays spending quite a liberal portion ol" their spare money in taking motor-bus rides to rural places whenever they get the chance, due saw the effects of the motor-bus ill the parks on Easter Sunday and on Bank Holiday. In former years—given fine weather, of course—these days saw London's chief parks athrong with people, but with the exception of Regent's Park the central open spaces this year were comparatively' speaking deserted except by children. Even in Regent's Park there seemed to he v big diminution in the Bank Holiday crowd, and oniy " 'Appy 'Amsted." beloved of "'Airy atid 'Arriet," appeared to hold il - own' against the motor-bus magnet. Ilampstead Heath, however, will always hold its own on a line Bank Holi.lav sy lung as London lasts, if the power- that he ami to come do not abolish the Fair and turn ihe Heath itself into an area of trim flower-beds, neallv gravelled walks, and carefully To a'certain cl:i--s of Londoner Hamp-si.-ad Heath and its Fair oil a line Bunk ~'. ,-vcr their imagination will permit them I.i g.-;. One thing the Easter holi-j,|-n- ~'i't'iiiih impressed on people who I gave a thought to the matter, namely. | Unit "getting boozed" is not nearly such a fashionable holiday amusement among I the poorer classes as it used to be. Posjsiblv the liquor of to-day is not so potent ,as of yore; maybe people are learning to '•carry their load" better, or perhaps it is really because people are drinking less. Whatever the reason, there certainly seemed to be a much smaller proportion oi drunken folk about this Easter than used to be the ease, and the Police Court aftermath certainly bears <out the testimony of the streets.

A HOLIDAY TRAGEDY.

It is seldom indeed that a public holiday in Uie Old Country passes by without producing a railway accident attended with fatal results, and the one we have just celebrated was no exception to the rule. Why accidents should occur with such unfailing regularity at these particular periods it is uot perhaps difficult to understand. All the world and his wife are travelling, trains gei delayed, timetables ar c temporarily altered to suit the exigencies <f excursion traffic, and the usual everyday workings of the different systems are thrown more or less completely out ol joint. Under such conditions the reliability of the human factor in railway working must be considerably decreased, even though railway employees do not treat themselves rather more generously in the matter of dfinks -at such times. The accident to the " Hying Scotchman" at Burntisland in the Jawn of Tuesday morning is directly traceable to the influence of holiday traffic She left King's Oross. Txmdoil, to time, but by the time she rent-hod Edinburgh -he was tha best part of half an hour late. But for that fact the goods train with which ' the expre-s collided would have been nowhere near the scene. Owing to the lateness of tiie express the goods train was permitted, it seems, to go beyond the point at which it was usually detained, and shunted to clear the line for th» express, and it was whilst it was bo.injf shunted off the main line at a point, farther down the line that the collision took place. And had the express been ten seconds later in its arrival there would have been no collision, for tin whole of the goods train, with the exception of the fore part of the engine, was (dear of the line when the express dashed up. running at the rate of over 00 mile.s an hour. Striking the goods locomotive a glancing blow, the express engine was thrown I broadside over the boundary wall on t,> 'a golf course live feet below the level I of the line. The driver and firemen j were pinned underneath, ami mc;, an I instantaneous death. The engine which. j with the -tend-er. weighed 110 tons, fell c on its side, and lav half buried in tha > sandy .. lit. Three carriages followed i the engine over the wall. and. to add to 1 the horrors of the situation, one of them caught fire. I Fortunately fire-extingu.i.shing appara--1 tils wa6 at hand. Guard Trotter tnkdo j I strch good use of it that the fire wa* j speedily «_tin<_ui_ied. The guard, who, j got his heands svovcrely burned whilo j j using the fire-extinguisher, had had a | ; marvellous *>«ea.pe. He was in the first , carriage to dash over ihe p.rapet. but ' was able fo cl ; mb out of hi; nn while I it was lying on t"e links. Hundred:- ~'" p-op> we r ,. >; tidily eri the feene. and volunteered jr. 1 a.l to I the injure?d. The pif-scnger,- »ere got

out of the overturned coaches ewichoufi great difficulty, and the most .seriously; injured—eight or nine in -.amber—were conveyed by special train to J___K-agih. The goods onegine, strange to say, actually kept on the rails, and tt appeals that so nearly was it dear of the main, line that it wils only .the left 'hand 'buffer that was struck by the express engine:. Yet such was the pace at which the "Flying Scotchman" was travelling that this was suflicient to bring about derailment. The frequency with which these last ■Northern trains have been coming ta grief of late years is really very alarming. It may he mere coincidence than catjnstrophc should follow- on cvtaeTrophe's heels m this way. bxrt it is hard to believe it. This Scottish dieaorter has fortunately not been as fatal as those at iHawefi and -Aisgill. Nine -were killed in the Hawes disaster and 16 died at __egil!. But the serious feature present in all these recent disasters (apart i'-ow anything that may come out, ac -to th« cause of the latest wreck) is the apparent indifference of the companies in the face of repeated recommendations with regard to life-saving precaution.., The Inspector's report on the Havvea accident urged the substitution of electricity for gas on express trainee. Tho report on the Aiegill eaceident a rear later repeated ithat recommendation, with emphasis. Eight months afterwards oniy the prompt action of a guard apparently prevented a repetition of the ghastly scenes caused by the gas firing the train, which made the accounte of the previous disasters such hideous reading.

TITO PREDOMINANT PARTNER.

Enpland is often referred to as the ''predominant partner in the. firm of John Bull and Co., but so far as the domestic concerns of the. United Kingdom are concerned, she is in legislative matters certainly not the "boss of ttm show." In connection with tho Home .Rule oontroversy tome interesting figures have been published showing how far England's voice is allowed to be beard in the lobbies of Parliament, .in the division on the second reading on April ti. 634 members of Parliament voted, who may be divided as follows: — For the Bill. Against. England .„. 203 243. Wales ....__... 26 3 Scotland .._. 53 15. Ireland « 77, 16. 357 2T7, Tlic 120 majority for the Bill was, therefore, exclusively composed of the representatives of Scotland, Wales, ana I Ireland, England giving a majority ot 40 against the Bill. And be it remembered England, taking the basis of population is grossly under-represented in Parliament. Talcing population as the basis, the case stands as follows: — Present Xo. Average Pop. of Members. per Member. , England 405 " 72,211 Wales 30 67,739 Scotland 72 6)1.103 Ireland 103 42.543 United Kingdom 670 67,487. If the total number of members was fairly distributed in accordance with population, the proportion would be as follows: — Members. England 505 Wales 30 Scotland 70 Ireland ho r'nited Kingdom (570 England, therefore, has forty members lees than her proper number, while Ireland has 38. and Scotland has two tn excess of the correct proportion. Wales alone being correctly represented numerically in Parliament. Taking certain areas containing about equal populations, the unfairness of the presetit representation is very striking. Pres. Pro. Population Mem. No. lxmdon 4,540,568 59 68 Essex, Kent, Surrey and -Middlesex 4,273,467 40 63 Lancashire 4.775.844 57 70 Ireland 5,381.051 103 65 England, the (predominant Ipartner, has a population of 34.034.076. while Wales. .Scotland, and Ireland, have a joint population of only 11.173,480. Whether these ligure.s will persuade the. reader that the. Home Kule. Bill should be parsed into law without loss of time, or shelved until tho Parliamentary representation of the United Kingdom is placed upon some more equitable footing than at present, depends, of course, entirely upon the political bias of the individual. It may not be out of place, however, to remark that the predominant partner's predominance is not striking when reduced to electoral figures.

I A TRAMP'S SEVEWPENN'ORTH.

Though many honest working men are complaining bitterly that, the. "Od for -Id" promised by Mr. Lloyd George when I lie introduced compulsory insurance is a delusion and a snare, and that the "rare and refreshing fruit which they were to receive in return foT licking insurance stamps is by no .means up to I the sample a.- verbally described, it seems that some icsa desirable members of the community are finding in the Insurance Act, a veritaible "boon and a blessing." Our ''Sundownere." (tramps we call them in ihe Old Country) ehave discovered the way to get something more than ninepenece for fourpence for their stamp-licking. It appears that the pos3cs.es.on of a. duly stamped card entitles the owner to a sort of preferential treatment by the workhouse authorities, as it is taken io indicate 1 hat the possessor is a bona fide working man. rionsewjuenily, Tired Tim and Weary Willie are making it a practice lo keep ait insurance card duly stamped to date tat -a cost of sevenpenee a vv,-ek. obtain,nl by bcgfgrng) — which .hoy present, at the workhouse gates a; nightfall. On the strength of i thiti guarantee of industry and respectability they are admitted, provide.! with (.upper, a bed. and a supply of food to BtKtain them through the next day's journey in search of ''work.'' Thus, for sevenpento a week -the shirt-works of tho community can obtain .board and lodging, whilst honest workers pay their fourpence a n-wk, 1 liiefiy. it seems, for the doubtful privi- , lege of visiting tin- crowded consulting (room of an overdriven "panel" doctor jif they should happen fo feel ill. Tre ingrnious use made of the Irsuranct. Act hy wily tramps is. ..I" course, no sound argument, agains- 00-rip-e.!s,<->ry : r,-uranee. hut i-. .err.-s :o <a.-,yy ' nnv .ifrVu'' •:s -o fashion a n \ct oi t.Se 'slid wb'.'l wiil not leave ope;-, -.'-in door