LONDON TO-DAY.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Volume XXX, Issue 4060, 29 December 1919, Page 1

LONDON TO-DAY.

A CROWDED HOUR.

NOBILITY AND GENTRY,

There never were .such times. Th'^ countrj •• hopeless'v bau'k-'uyt, and lolling i 1; luxury-—;o writes Mr .A\.v ander M. Thompson in the Daily Mai The London streets se continue^ never were so crowded. The fashionable restaurants, the hotels, the theatres, the music-halls, the picture shows, the big West End stores, ar-; packed beyond record and precedent Never in the high and palmy state of Rome did 'such a motley horde throng the places of public a nimbly. There is more wealth and sp^ndouv in London to-day than in. the Arabian Nights. Such a bustling, hustling, intermixed and intertangling wonder t There is a cosmopolitan medley of frock coats, mantles, burnous, hats, caps, tm*bans, and gaberdines. Within a hundred yards' walk alons the Strand or Piccadilly you shall jostle Japanese, Chinese, and Americans., an Archbishop, a victorious general, the hero of the last football match, an infinitude of Dutch, a bevy of famous actresses, a tatooed Islander from the South Seas, a Basuto chief, a trader from Tierra del Fuego, and even native's of Pudsey. Amazing Mixture. There are habitues of Court and police court, of Church and turf, of Stock Exchange^ and Parliament, a" wonderful mixture of earthworms., pigeons, rooks, vultures, and carrion crows/flunkeys and panders, the cankers of a fevered time and topsy turvy world. .. , What are these phenomena doin'R. .here. Whence comes the money the 1 ■so prodigally lavish ? ■ Bankruptcy? Economy?. Stint 7 Why, the car of luxury never rolle:! so merrily. The general air of pros perity and plenty-of-money-to-spend is the. crowning, 'constant wonder of the amazing pageant. In the course of an hour's trudge through the rain and slush the only people I saw who showed signals of distress were the blue-chinned, brok-en-down actors in buttoned coats' and mouldy hats, the sere and yellow veterans of the stage who eternally do hover between Short's and the Bodega In all ,the war's; changes they haven't changed. They still wait in irrepres sible expectation of the Blessed Philanthropist who is to comei cne day tr take them by the hand, to afford them unlimited, fluid assuagement, and engage them all. to play Hamlet till the sheeted dead do rise to squeak and gibber in the London streets. Wav-rlcli Nobility. I went to one of the highest-price^ restaurants for luncheon. The plac was packed. After a short wai' through grass and shameful favour itism I secured a seat. Judging from he quality and quantity of .the winewh'ch we"c being imbibed, the peopV were all of the highest war-rich no bil'ty. They drank as generously a; '■he loi'd of the proverb. The "duchess" at the next table whose jewe'lery must have cost thou sands, galled the waiter "Jow," anr> when she ordered her sumptuous an' 1 delicate rfepast she asked him for " double 'elpin' of cracklin'.." Tlv scene at the exit recalled memorie; i of the days when I played forward at football. Everybody wanted cars or taxis and pushed aside everybody e^se tr get them; One fat-paunched "marquis," of obviously foreign origin, in-, serted his elbow in the small of my I back what time a puffy and profusely perspiring plutocrat in a fur-coat die' me the honour to stand on my Victory corn. Then the blood of mm? ancient but still hefty Yorkshire race surged in my sanguinary conduits and, sparing neither foreigner nowar contractor, I rudely split the serried ranks of Britain''s new chivalry and quit. Turkish Baths Full Up. Then I met a theatrical manager from Chicago, a stupendous I*'man who knows more about jazz dance's anc 1 bedroom scenes than. Shakespearr ever guessed. When he landed iv this hamlet he had an impressio* that London was down and out, wit" the shutters up and the brokers in After trying every hotel froir> Euston to Knightsbridge he partially recovered. Having come straight from Chicago,, where the brain waves come from, he had one. "I will try/ he said to himself, "a brilliantly bright and wholly original idea. If I cannot get a bedroom I will charter a cubicle in the Turkish baths. The British are a brave and thirsty race, • but in the eerebellar subtleties they cannot touch Chicago. This stunt is pure 'Merican." | But when he go.t -there the cucboands were not bare. The place'wa* full of mutton-headed persons with straw in their hair, silly primitive cattle dealers from . Hogwash-in-tho-Slush, who yet had had the sense to book their cubicles a full week earlier. . ■ - The Chicago man was very much surprised. He inquired whether he. could have a cubi^e.'next. day. Th^ manager answered that, every divan in the place was engaged for quite a week ahead. . "The only place.we can offer you" he obligingly added, "is a shelf ov>'■ the .top of the main boiler. The stou 1 gentleman who occupied it last nighf has not yet come down, but if yon care to wait a minute I will sent an attendant with a sheet of blottingpaper to collect him.' The man from Chicago, having thought it over, concluded that a seat on the Embankment might peradventure be better for his cough.

TWO PENCE.