ALIEN’S LETTER FROM ENGLAND

Otago Witness, Issue 3168, 2 December 1914, Page 67

ALIEN’S LETTER FROM ENGLAND

(Specially Written for the Ladies’ Page.)

MASKED October 8. The optimists are already beginning to prophesy all the good that we shad reap from this horrible war —a new England and a millennium of peace. God grant it—if it is not blasphemy to bring the name of the Maker of men into this awful carnage. But there are times when it seems a mockery to pray, an indecency to ask God’s aid. Sick with the list of awful slaughter and more awful wounding of man and beast —which, if we shudder to read, is how much more terrible to live, —there are ties when it is difficult, even in the name of right and honour, to believe that any future gain can make good our present * loss. Individually we shall not gain: our soldiers of the Empire are not out for individual good, but for the hon-< our of the nation and the gain of the future race. We women shirk the suffering for our men more than w T e shirk our individual part, and in our heart of hearts wonder if the thought, the skill, the concentrated energy that have gone to prepare this war, the genius and talent expended in its equipment, expended for peace, could not have secured the peace of the whole world. But the will of Germany Avas not for peace, but for conquest, as the devil’s inventions for destruction show. Only Avith the horror of war deep in the stricken souls of the nations will peace be fostered and bred, as war is fostered and bred in the armaments of the world. Here and there people turn from the ! thought of the war, and tell you to seek ; diversion. Can we? Ought we? _ By i every inch that the roots of war’s bitterness fasten into our souls, feeding on our ! joy and substance, so the stronger and ; Avider will be the future branches of peace. ; The more we sicken at the thought of ; the blood, the more we lose, the more we | mourn, so, in proportion, shall we count I the cost before we are agreed—men and 1 women are agreed—that future profits are worth it. There will never be another world-war in which the voice of the women of the nations is not heard. This is costing woman too dear. We need very much to pay us back for all our lost men, for the quality lost to the world and our homes, which are summed up in despatches as “heroic,” “gallant,” “undaunted.”' In the same spirit that the men go to the fight, so do we endure at home, for we, for Avhom they fight, must not fall into the habit of taking their heroism lightly as a matter of course, as a matter of history, talking and thinking vaguely of “the country’s honour.” It is for us those trenches reek Avith blood, for our sakes the soldiers go quietly and determinedly to death, that we may be free from molestation. And it is not our part to take it for granted. We must get right up to the fighting line in spirit, and hear the shrieks and groaning as men tell it who tell the truth. HarroAying? So it should be harrowing. The grief of it should be more than we can tamely bear. Not “idle tears” of eneiwating Aveakness, but the grief of the resolute Avill that can suffer with others to the death sooner—now so much has been sacrificed, so much at stake —than accept a dishonourable peace that would make it easier for us to-day and harder for others later on. It is those who feel the least about it and understand the least who cry for peace at any price. “To stand aloof Avhile the warring nations are in the throes of a struggle too vast in its extent and too terrific in its conditions for mind to picture or language adequately to describe, and to be able to sleep secure in their beds unvexed by Krnpp or Zeppelin, should surely, to the privileged ones, be a matter for deepest thankfulness ” —but not a thankfulness of placid acceptation. That is not the spirit of the nation, not the spirit of its womanhood, Avho in man’s hour of care may be as uncertain and as hard to please as the British poet knew her, but when a shoulder is Avanted to the wheel she is in the push. Perhaps the very hardest tasks of all are those for which, at the moment, we have no enthusiasm —the daily routine tasks Avhich avg have performed so long that they appear mechanical, but into Avhich avc have unconsciously put more of ourselves than we are aAvare, until the same tasks have to be -performed with our heart and mind out of them. And yet these are the bravest tasks that Ave perform for duty’s, sake. The mother caring for the comfort and the happiness of the children, Avhose daily well-being of body and mind depend upon her, none the less that her OAvn mind and heart is away and racked Avith fear for their father on “active service.” Wo most of us have knoAvn at one time or another the obsession of a great sorroAV and the nausea for the daily task which it breeds. But to truly “get away from ourseKes” is to get into some need of another—eA*en the need of a child. Many a troubled mind has been soothed over the darning of the socks. You know that story of the woman Avhose lover was at war, and while she knitted her thoughts were so intently Avith him that his face worked into the pattern of the knitting. Upon a million household Avoman’s tasks to-day the Empire over a beloved image is stamped. The mother cooking her children’s dinner wonders what her eldest boy has got to eat in the trenches; the wife darning the children’s socks wonders when their father’s will be among them again in the mending basket. That Ave are sacrificing and fighting, not for future war, but the conquest of future peace, not for ourselves but for the children and children’s children, we need to tell ourselves and one another very often, so that we may bo braced for to-day. “I came not to bring peace, but a

LIGHTS. sword,” said the Man of Peace —a SAVord against oppression and injustice. “ Masked lights,” the new police order Avhich has been issued for London this week, represents more than its shaded gas. The brilliance of its social life is masked also, although its bright spirit is there to be turned on from the main the moment the occasion arises. In ordinary times the blare in the sky OA T er the metropolis could be seen from the heights of Hampstead and Wimbledon and Highgate as the glare is seen from the distance of vast plains on fire. But the guide to the Zeppelins was too brilliant, even after the first pi’ecautions of doing away Avith the arc lights and resplendent advertisements on “sky-scrapers” and lighted clocks in toAvers; and so this Aveek the word has gone forth that the upper part of all street lamps must be darkened also, and the flares in the open markets abolished. Even theatreland is dim, and there are no electric sky signs. In some parts of the West End solitary lamps light the streets, and the great “Circuses” —those brilliant meeting-places of many AA-ays —are shrouded and mysterious. On the Embankment many of the lights are extinguished, and only every alternate cluster on the bridges are lit, thus breaking the span Avhich made a bridge manifest. Nor are the powerful forelights of motor cars permitted. Thus, for the time being, London has gone back to the days —or nights, rather—before electricity. But there is a strange difference, not only of the accustomed withdraAvn, but of those unaccustomed searchlights of the sky which from Charing Cross and elseAA’here sweep the darkness above the cloudcapped toAvers. There are other differences, too—the lessened crowd, the closed hotels and clubs, the midnight silence. London knoAvs a night at last —a night of Avatching. The sound of its revelry has been stilled—stilled in Avatching and waiting, but not by fear. Even the voice of its pleasure is a different voice. Its songs are not the old songs of indulgence and unchartered sentiment—the musichalls are meeting-houses of the heroic. All the stars are singing the song of "the hour, “Your King and Country Want You;” and the other night a wounded soldier who had returned from the war, at the conclusion of the refrain, “We shall kiss you Avhen you come back again,” Avent up to claim the promised reAvard of the beautiful singer. And he received it, too, for she bent forAvard and kissed him before the rapturously applauding house. War lectures are being arranged for the country districts, Avith the double object of educating the people more intimately regarding the war, and in raising further funds for the National Relief Fund. These lectures are to be elaborately illustrated by lantern slides. Clergymen, barristers, schoolmasters, and business men are undertaking to give the lectures in many of the outlying London districts as Avell as in A'illages and elseAvhere. In this Avay a comprehensiA’-e realisation of Avhat the w'ar really is and means Avill be obtained, not only by the young folk, but by many others Avho have not the opportunity of exhaustive study, wffiile many a lengthening eA T ening Avill be passed Avith the one living interest of the day and night. Every day brings a new appeal. Among" those of this Aveek is an appeal for Avarm winter clothing for the Boy Scouts, Avho are doing duty all along the coasts as Avell as in other places Children are hoav being encouraged to help in the w 7 ar by personal sacrifice of some much desired “small” thing in the estimation of the groAvn-ups, but of inestimable A r alue to the child itself. The Children’s Red Cross Fund could be established in almost every household Avhere there are children, instead of the personal money-box, some responsible person of the district undertaking at certain times to forAvard the accumulation of these sums to headquarters. Although the Prince of Wales's Fund has reached £3.000,000, and the Queen’s Fund for Women’s Employment has reached almost £70,000, only the fringe of need is touched. And these moneys are not, of course, draAvn upon for the men and boys in service. Fourteen hundred Boy Scouts are stationed on the coast from Dover to John o’ Groat’s, and Chief Scout BadenPoAvell asks the generous public for great coats, blankets, stockings, SAveaters, comforters, rnits, and stocking-caps to protect them during the cold days and nights ahead on the edge of the North Sea. These gallant youths and lads are figuring well in service—thousands of them will be among Britain’s soldiers of the future, and a complete company of ex-Boy Scouts joined a battalion of Lord Kitchener’s army last Aveek, and a cyclist battalion has offered for service if required. Many thousands of other boys are anxious to join the movement; but so many scoutmasters and commissioners have gone to the front that there are not enough officers to train them, and new additions to the organisation cannot be at present accepted. All gifts to the Boy Scouts should be sent to 116 Victoria street, London, S.W. Hurry up, girls, with the stockings and mits and mufflers! j Members of the Relief Committee report | that in East London conditions are be- | coming very severe, despite the machinery I of administration, wffiich is getting into ! comprehensive working order. With the i daily longer roll of honour of fighters on sea and land, those whose normal condition is a struggle year in year out against unemployment and poverty and stavation are in these days of crisis the Avorst sufferers. The Suffrage Societies are doing splendid Avork. Miss Sylvia Pankhurst at her costprice restaurants, which have been opened this week at Poplar, Avhere two-course meals are being served for 2d and children

Id, will make as many converts to the women’s cause as by her lectures. At the same centre it is hoped to shortly establish a workroom for unemployed and a creche for babies; but all these things require money The maximum wage of 10s 8d a week is being fixed for the women by the 'Women s Committee for providing work for unemployed women in connection with Queen Mary’s Fund. A single girl will be able just not to starve on the “ wage,” but the maximum of 10s a week which the Relief Committees are in some cases fixing for families relieved out of the Prince of Wales Fund is totally inadequate. Yet what would happen without even that? What will happen as the cold of winter comes one dare not think. The administrators of the relief funds have a terrible problem before them. One thing is certain : many will suffer who will never apply; and another thing is equally certain : many professional “ pore out of work ”-ers, who hoped and quite intended to live on the fat of the fund, will discover that it is not “for the likes of us” after all, but that the claim must be genuine. Have you read the poem “ The Day,” by Henry Chappel, which has been reprinted from the Daily Express in leaflet form? I append it here. Mr Chappel is a railway porter at Bath, and is known to his comrades as the “ Bath RailwayPoet.” It is acknowledged that such a poem lifts him to the rank of national poet: THE DAY. You boasted the Day, and you toasted the Day. And now the Day has come. Blasphemer, braggart and coward all, Little you reck of the numbing ball, The blasting shell, or the "white arm’s” fall, As they speed poor humans home. , You spied for the Day, you lied for the Day, And woke the Day’s red spleen. Monster, who asked God’s aid Divine, Then strewed His seas with the ghastly mine; Not all the waters of all the Rhine Can wash thy foul hands clean. You dreamed for the Day, you schemed for the Day; Watch how the Day will go. Slayer of age and youth and prime (Defenceless slain for never a crime) Thou art steeped in blood as a. hog in slime. False fvieqd and cowardly foe. You have sown for the Dey, you have grown for the Day; Yours is the harvest red. Can you hear the groans and the awful cries ? ... Can you see the heap of slain that lies,. And sightless turned to the flame-split skies The glassey eyes of the dead? You have wronged for the Day, you havo longed for the Day That lit the awful flame. ’Tis nothing to you that hill and plain Yield sheaves of dead men amid the grain; That widows mourn for their loved ones slain, And mothers curse thy name. But after the Day there's a price to pay For the sleepers under the sod. And He you have mocked for many a day— Listen, and hear what He has to say; ” VENGEANCE IS MINE, I V ILL REPAY. ” What can you say to God? The brightest of our “masked light ’ is that which is burning in the will and endurance of the nation in the hour of its need and sorrow, in the patriotic glow that warms the heart of the Empire amid the chills of disaster. To-morrow we expect the Canadian Contingent, and for many days and to-morrows \ve shall he as one in our common endeavour for King, home, and country. The Health Caravan. A novel expedition makes its way through the villages of England every summer. The expedition is sent out by the Women’s Imperial Health Association, and consists of a caravan —the “Florence Nightingale ” Van —equipped with a lecturer, a magic lantern, a kinematograph, and a large and varied assortment of literature on the subject of health and how to keep it. In particular it makes for the places where the inhabitants have only a nodding acquaintance with the principles of hygiene, because the object of the tour is' to teach as many people as possible such of the elementary rules of health as they do not happen to know. At each village the lecturer takes up her “pitch” on the village green, or in a meadow, and talks to the mothers of the locality. She tells them how disease is propagated through flies, by ill-ventilated rooms, and improperly-cooked food. She deals with the evils of long-tubed feeding bottles, the consequences of giving baby the “ run of the house,” the danger of comforters, push chairs, tight clothing, and similar things. Then, with the aid of the magic lantern, the kiaematograph, and a portable screen, vivid pictures are shown, illustrating the lecturer’s points. A good deal of tact has to he exercised, for few mothers like to be told how to bring up their children. But the kinema

pictures always prove an enthralling source of attraction, and the mothers listen with interest when they realise that they are being told things they did not know. But the most interesting, and perhaps the most helpful, work the van does is in teaching health to the schoolchildren. In every village the schoolmaster or mistress is interviewed, and in almost every vase is only too anxious to have extra lessons on health and hygiene given to the children. So the lecturer gives the boys and girls a little talk about keeping fit too. It is, of course, all very, very simple. They are taught the importance of personal cleanliness, of open windows, of keeping down the population of flies. After the lecture each child is presented with a leaflet containing “ten commandments of health.” Very sensibly the rules are prefaced, not by “I will,” but by “I will try to.” Because the promoters of the movement are well aware that an enthusiastic young hygienist who insisted upon opening the windows and following the various precepts might get himself into trouble at home.