LONDON IS CITY OF MASKED FACES

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 3336, 3 May 1926, Page 10

LONDON IS CITY OF MASKED FACES

THERE ARE FEW SMILES AM) MUCH RESERVE LONDON, March 28 Loudon is a city of masked faces. Suppose that on a radiant spring morning' you set out to determine which section of the community could provide the greatest number of happy faces. Very likely you might do as I did, writes a press correspondent, and begin your quest with the intention of taking the first ‘bus whose conductor looked as radiant as the day. , . Afterwards who knows what your experiences might be? Mine vore these. Laughter in a ‘Bus Several ‘buses passed whose conductor looked gloomy, preoccupied, peevish, or as expressionless as ‘ Miss Poker Paco.’ ’ They wore ignored. Then there suddenly hurried along. In a gallant and adventurous manner, a ‘bus with a conductor who had the most checiful and happy face of all the Londoners whom I saw yesterday. I shouted to the ‘bus to stop. The conductor smiled. I smiled. The •bus smiled. I jumped on to the ‘bus. The conductor laughed. 1 laughed. Everyone in the ‘bus laughed. The number of the owner or London’s happiest face is ,15,008. That was a good beginning. But the rest of the story is very dismal. In one of the largest West End stores I saw hundreds of pleasant faces behind the counter. But there was not one of them which radiated happiness. I went on to a great building soon to be completed to look at bricklayers and those experts whose job it is to whisk with a strange brush specks of dust from the faces which decorate the exterior. A Professional Smile. The bricklayers had concealed themselves, and the faces of the gentlemen with brushes wore as immobile as the faces they were brushing. On to Kensington Gardens. The nurses were talking very quickly all at the same time ,but they did not impress me with happiness.. A man selling violets in Bond Street looked happy at intervals, but it was a rather professional happiness. One felt as if the smile had been put on for trade purposes. Then the city, and East India Dock Road. There were smiles in the city, and smiles in Poplar, but I found no face that, were I an artist. X should want to paint for its happiness, no face that 1 would like to take home and have always about me just because it looked so happy. Where arc London’s happy faces? Is 15,608 the only man who is not afraid to show his joy.