LAUGHING LONDON

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 10207, 18 February 1919, Page 7

LAUGHING LONDON

A NEW ZEALANDER’S IMPRES-

SIONS,

The English' have certain stock methods of amazihg the colonial. First is the custom of bringing false charges against themselves. If you do not grasp exactly what I mean, recall a statement made by or attributed to a visiting New Zealand school teacher, that London children do not laugh. They are actually the merriest little beasts in the world. I had seven days’ sick leave. I was not able to move swiftly; but I saw a lot. I saw and loved a laughing London. Grey as ever, clouded as ever, maybe as mysterious as ever to the man not born amid its masonry; but happier than two years ago—more used to little restrictions, and less “nervy,” if that is the right ..word- Walk a little with mo—if I walk slowly and pause now and. then for breath, that’s the war. In one of those quiet hotels where dear ladies listen patiently to the stories of very very old generals, there wore smiles to spare. Even those who had lost the , most smiled slowly as they talked about those wlio were going where their dearest had gone. They took me to tea in one of those groat drapery places which are also art galleries and a dozen other things. Wq went at the wrong hour; but the waitress smiled. Sheer hard luck sent mo to one ol those narrow and furtive streets where it seems that no good thing may be—a. terrible street where it is always twilight and the folk who live in the small flats lie hidden through tho day. A sad place, because those there knew the madness of their own lives, and worn bad with knowledge learnt in the wasted years- Yet I saw smiling faces there; and far up the winding concrete stairs an' elderly Frenchwoman laughed at a memory as she told a story all compact of tears. As I came away a piano-organ was jangling and a little knot of your aged English street children were dancing. Surely they were happy. a V?{? n ’* "• as in a departmental office of the Ministry for Munitions. I don’t know if yon have nests of beetles in this country. Once as a boy I .poked a stick into a nest, and the insects crawled out in myriads. So very young girls and flappers, and young women, and women who were elderly, came out to their lunches.’ There was little noise of laughter; but their smiles wore obvious. I am content to believe I was right in thinking them happy. v I fed at a Y.M.C.A. place which used to be a big night club when I was here last. Was it sadder now ? It was merrier than it had ever been; and it had a now honesty in its mirth. Even if they had cut out tho food, though I was hungry, I would have paid the shilling for tho music aud tho laughter. In a different place, a restaurant whore you ate as in pre-war days, drank the same wines as before, and joined tho unmeant grumble that liquors were not the same, save for most abominable waiting wo had as much .reason to laugh as in tho old days—more, perhaps, for wore wo not alive, free of routine, and careless yet that dawn came soon and death might lurk in tho next day. London is more than a mere town of smiling peoplo. The loudest laughter I have heard has boon from those who had tho least to laugh about; and it, is written that a man may smile and still be a villain, while the woman who

is merry in public is too often a poor actress.’ “'Yob' English, and particularly you Londoners, have something deeper, something more complete. You have a sense of comfort we colonials never know. You haye homes, and some of us have none. You can smile through weary days;, live on silly bun and tea lunches, be glad in foggy weather, live in deplorable, dull suburbs—and still be content. At the end of your day there is'rest and home. God save us all, we’ve done well to com© overseas if it has helped to let you rest in peace* and has taught us the folly of restlessness, of. the ennui which sots caged lions striding and makes ns- forget to laugh.