HUMOURS OF WAR TRAVELLING

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 50, 27 February 1915, Page 6

HUMOURS OF WAR TRAVELLING

MIDNIGHT GLOOM IN lOH2OS STREETS. MEDIEVAL CRIES REVIVED. (From Our Lady Correspondent.) WS'DOX, .January 7. An outsider would probably aver it he visited London nowadays that we are high on the road to becoming moonworshippers. For suddenly, when bhe strongest of lie had liad to confess many times to "nerves," in the gloom the police authorities ordained our lot, a moon burst out to light us and all our ways with an effect few had anticipated. It is evidence that the mind of tiro average Londoner bows iteolf reverently and unconsciously to the yoke of law and order, that one's first thought was the illegality of such brilliance. But even the danger to which nature wantonly exposed us, who had been shielded in such discomfort, was scorned in the surprise and glory of the sudden holiday from caution. A fine devil-may-care mood wa« ours for a w.hile, which translated might have been a sort of "Let come what may, who cares? Man only can die once." It lasted, of course, ali too short a time, and we were soon »»ain in a most ■uiirelijriou.s dimness, tfioup-li there is, for thp one safe on the footpath, something whimsical in the way shopkeepers express themselves in tho coverings they devise for their illuminations. (hie very large draper's whop has tho most funereal black tin shades, shaped like colossal candle snuffers, for its OUtHido arc lamps, others try various emblems, arrangement*! of khaki, red, white and blue, black, gold and red. etc. while lights flicker discontentedly through blue paper from the majority of windown. The glass doors of railway carriages are all painted drab or violet, all blinds I an; kept down at night*, ami the same jprecaution its uken in the underground trains. One of the very picturesque efpecte of night in the Ka«t Knd him always been the coster's method of illumination—one gaudy Chinese lantern swinging unconcernedly under his donkey barrow. The purveyor of winkles and other fish, vegeI table* and fruit, scores now, in being one of the tew who can continue on his way unmolested. In the Jiast Knd, where light, save in the main avenues or thoroughfares and I around public-housee as can afford it, lis never too plentiful, the various edicts, each clipping a little <ifr the indulgence of the lust, till we think patiently that I surely now we have arrived at the miniImuni possible, are taken very seriously, so that, but a mile or two from Charing Cross people every night have literally ito feel their way over crossings, and I solemn citizens mc to be seen sprawling J with their noses in the mud. suffering surely iv this way for the good of their I country. One effect of the new dangers that surround us is the revival of cries of warning, that reach one musically enough in tin? darkness. "Oi! Oi! oyez!", cries the vendor of all mannex of commonplace goods to-day, just as the old towncriers once did. CllliEß IN THE GLOOM. As motor buses ply their way over any route where there is a bridge, every light, save the driver* head one, is, at the bridge, suddenly turned out, though at ita most luxurious, before that, it was I but nil )»-.' J us through the medium of violet bulbs and violet shades on top of those. It has became an impossibility, therefore, to read, and sleeping passengers have come ajain into fashion where long journeys arc their lot. Jiiis drivers and conductors seem I always, according to tradition, to have 1 been a cheery class in the Old Country, land adversity had neutralised the evil J effect of i-okl motor power, tind made the. 'Jehu and his assistant of to-day kin jto the hearty horse philosopher that 'used to so delight New Zealanders a lew i years back. ■ The requisitioning of scores, if not hnn■dreds of motor buses for the front has I meant tlis rescinding ot all rules as to ! overcTowd'.ng, ttnil every vehicfc, east or (West, now litis more than its quota of istrap-hangeif, none ever daring to give I way to peevishness, because we're all so "unfeijruediy thankful that we've still :got something to save \ls a walk home. • And conductors, who must be constantly tried as never'before, seem to be under a charm of cheerfulness. "Buses ain't made of elastrc, lidy, you know,' , in a tone of protest; or "Oh, get in, ain't jmy funeral if the "ole blooming show J breaks down —one- accident more'r less j ain't no account in war time, i ts'pose," I and so on, while a dead beat charwoman, j her unconscious head on one side, wilt be roused with a friendly shove, and a "Wake up. old dear, how much dyer want for a tuppeny fare!"; or "Lor , ' luv a duck! Aldgate yer wanted, did yer? Called it out about ten times. Cant come and whisper it in everyone's car, yer know." What part a bu3 conductor plays in West Knd peregrination the New Zealander has forgotten. Eastward in these dark times he merits a special halo, while a -miniature Victoria Cross -would surely ' jiot come amiss as recognition of the 1 very real bravery and self-control dis--1 played by the drivers of unwieldy motor ■ buses, carrying nearly double their or- ■ dinary complement of passengers, along ' thoroughfares slippery from the rain . that, on this seventh of January, has ' deluged us since the beginning of Decem- ■ her."and through an atmosphere "black 1 as Egypt's night." I Life has become in earnest, even for old stagers, what a newly-arrived New , Zealander so wittily described as "a scries of miraculous escapes."