"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3330, 9 January 1918, Page 51

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for'the Ladies' Page.)

OUR NIGHTS AND DAYB. October 22

We have not had a long spell of peace from the air-raiders —barely two weeks, — and now, with the crescent moon, they are on us again, and one has not settled down for the evening when the familair whistle of the special constable—the " take cover " warning—interferes with any plans one may have made that necessitate, even a short journey of oneself or others; nor can' one read or write or work at anything that requires concentration. After a year's respite from the Zeppelins England was taken by surprise the other evening, when they reappeared—ll of them —to prove that the Zeppelin mienace has not been overcome, as we have been encouraged to believe," that while we have been congratulating ourselves on a danger past Germany' has been building new and improved machines. And the strange part of the raid of Friday night was that nobody heard the engines. Whereas in the past the Zeppelins signalled their approach with a loud noise in the air as of a train going through a tunnel, on this occasion nobody heard any sound at all except the bursting of bombs. Nor was there any gun-firing. It was a mystery raid. The crescent moon, like a " curled feather" (with Venus glowing in close juxtaposition), set soon after 6 o'clock, and there was an hour of the now early darkness; and,- calculating that aeroplanes would not come after dark, everybody was surprised at the, "take cover" warnings. One listened and heard nothing. The searchlights were piercing the sky; tat nothing was to be seen. Then from the direction of Canterbury came the sound of three or four bombs falling, and after that a long, silent wait. I went to bed and to sleep, till at halfpast 2 the whistle that signified " All clear" roused the echoes. Meanwhile the Zeppelins had surprised London and other towns, dropping eight bombs on one town on the way. On London three bombs were dropped, killing 19 people and injuring 13, the Friday night's raid killing 27 and injuring over 50 in all. The bombs dropped on London were in the poorer districts, and they were much larger and more destructive than those of the aeroplanes. In one street in a poor district a widowed mother lost her six children. The seventh, her eldest son, is serving in France. Next door another mother has died with her three children. The Prime Minister went down next day and viewed the ruins, and talked with those who sat disconsolate among the remnants of their homes. Two women and a child were killed in one house, and an old man left with, his back terribly injured. In another house a boy, who had sheltered under a table, was rescued from the debris unhurt. A torpedo fell just at the back of a row of one-storied cottages, three of which were blown to matchwood, and the backs of the whole row blown in. A boy and a girl caught under a beam ecreamed terribly till they died. A

soldier home on leave said the experience was more nerve-shaking than any he had experienced at the front. The news - was received here with much satisfaction that four or five of the Zeppelins were brought down by France on their return journey. But everybody is asking if it is not time that our air service had a separate Ministry.

The week has ended in disquiet and disappointment. Even in the most feminine circles, in the women's clubs, and wherever two or three women are gathered together, it is the war that is discussed. Dress is taboo; informal parties are *not discussed, but women's war work, the raids, and the why and wherefore of our disappointing air-management and the inactivity of the British fleet. The news that German raiders can boast that they "succeeded in evading the British watching squadrons on the long, dark nights," and with 80 of their best ships engaged in the Baltic were still able in the North Sea (our sea) to sink two- of our torpedo boats and the nine neutral ships of which ! they were the convoy, is disquieting, and j people are asking with Germany, "Where j is the British fleet?" and, with it, the American navy? People are asking why we cannot attack the Flemish coast, destroy Zeebrugge, and turn Ostend into a British base, and why our Admiralty did nothing to help the Russians against the Germans in the Gulf of Riga? And again, and yet again, the people are ask- j ing, When does the air service intend to take the reprisals promised on German towns for the deliberate and oft-repeated

murder of women and children? If the country is to spend the long, dark nights of the winter, as we spent the nights of the summer, in interminable watching and strain, the public health is bound to suffer. Where there are children and nervous women and the aged and infirm to protect the strain is very great, because so continuous. Nurses of the sick and wounded, who remain like Spartans at their post, the bedridden and helpless, all feel the anxiety and suspense, however quietly they endure it; and if the bombing of German would keep their Zeppelins and aeroplanes more at home defending themselves we should be that much to the good. "The terror that flyeth by night" will never cause England to cry out for an unholy peace; but we should be defended from it as much as possible. Next year the Germans boast, and not without foundation, that their aeroplanes will darken the sky. Next year ours may be as numerous. To live in caves and tunnels will be the safest if the vtrar is to be decided in the air. Meanwhile London especially is arranging many public shelters in the basements of warehouses and other substantial buildings, with several • concrete floods overhead, through which bombs could not easily pass. But the only sure defence is to attack the enemy day after day. ■ France made Friday night's Zeppelin raid the most disastrous for the enemy of all their ventures. They wandered over England dropping bombs as they liked; but when they reached France it was a different matter. The King expressed his view on reprisals when he and the Queen went down on Sunday afternoon to visit the bombed area in London. Standing among the ruins of the houses, surrounded by the poor people who stood among the piles of debris that was once their home, his Majesty said : "I wish the people % who are against retaliation could see this wreckage." He spoke to the local vicar, who had been working hard to secure shelter for the homeless. The Queen entered several of the wrecked houses and talked freely with the women, making herself acquainted with their fears and sorrows.

Dissatisfaction was expressed orTall sides at the inadequacy of the take-cover warnings in London. In the quiet of country places the whistle is distinctly heard from a distance. It penetrates through the air; but in London the sound is muffled by the buildings and smothered by the noise of the traffic. Different experiments are to be tried with green lights and other methods, and that which proves most efficient will be adopted. "Work while it is day" is the motto these times, for the evenings of the moonlight nights are spent chiefly in taking cover. One used to count on the long winter evenings in which to get many things done; but almost of a certainty while the moon shines the alarm sounds; and sunset falling so early, it is evening after 6 o'clock. Even the early closing at 7 does not allow shop assistants and others to get home before the " take cover " warning sounds. Gales seem the ! only alternatives to raids that we have to look forward to during the long evenings. : Although no report is given of raids since ! that of the Zeppelin raid on Friday, both j on Saturday and last night (Sunday) the ' warning whittle blew early in the evening, J and in about an hour and a-half came the "all clear " notification. That we shall feel a very real food pinch ' this winter is daily becoming more manfc fest, and the "food control" is chaos. Everything with fixed prices is sold at the I retailer's own price, in defiance of the Controller, by trickery or without it. Months ago the price of tea, was fixed at 2s 4d a lb, except for very special

brands of China and Indian teas. Almost immediately the Government controlled tea this commodity was "sold out," and none was in stock except the special teas at 3s, . 4s, and even 5s per lb, and it Is more than hinted that the special brands were immediately manufactured ' from the cheaper varieties. The order by which tea was controlled, that 40 per cent, should be retailed at -2s 4d and 2s 8d per lb, has had the effect of banishing; it from the market. Who is holding it back? The butchers are as defiant of the Food Con- i troller as they dare be. Whatever the price "fixed,"' the meat is retailed much as it was before, The tea shortage has led to a large demand for coffee, which is comparatively plentiful at from Is lOd a lb. Housewives are having weary trudges, rain or fine, visiting dozens of , shops before obtaining a quarter of a pound of tea or even a few ounces, or, perhaps, none. The large West End stores are no • better off than the smaller shops. " No j tea," " No sugar," " No butter," or " No margarine" boards are displayed. Sometimes a store or shop will be sold out of all four articles. "No butter, no matches, j no margarine, no soda, no syrup" was the shortage at one shop, and doubtless there were hundreds all over the country in like case. The present shortage of tea is due, it is stated, to the restriction of imiDorts in the earlier months of the year. The Food Controller has arranged with the_ Shipping Controller for adequate imports in future, so that tea will be much more plentiful before the end of the war, which is good news for everybody, for with ale and wines and snirits at prohibitive prices for the masses, there has been a greater demand than ever for tea, the men joining the women in the cup that cheers. The shortage of tea is a very great deprivationthere are so many other things it is so much easier' to do Avithout. Many women can scarcely imagine another world of happiness without their cup of tea. But it is satisfactory to know that the soldiers either in training or at the front are not allowed to feel the shortage. The scarcity of bacon and other things to the general public- is partly owing to

the Government commandeering enormous consignments for the use of the army. Two million pounds of jam a week goes to France, and in April this year the Contracts Department had ordered 260,000,0001 b. Last year New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa supplied 41,000,0001 b. The soft fruit crop in England was over in 1914 when war began, and the jam had for. the most part been distributed to retailers, so the Government had chiefly to fall back on the August and September fruits —apple and plum,—and that is why the army was surfeited with these jams; but since then the army jam has been made of every fruit according to its season, including strawberries, and that is the reason, added to the shortage of sugar, why jam is so clear and so scarce. More than half a million pounds of tea are sent weekly to the army in France, and the Army Contracts Department at the beginning of this year purchased 167,000,0001 bof cheese. Cheese is still much easier to obtain.than bacon or butter.

Housekeeping is becoming an excitement as well as an art, and the chase for tea and butter enlivens many a drab life. Reputations are getting a rest; the shortcomings and long-goings of pur friends and neighbours are of no interest whatever beside the all-important question, "Did you get any tea or butter?" And friends exchange. One who has .obtained butter but no tea goes halves with another who has obtained tea but no butter. One thrifty housekeeper of my acquaintance, seeing the tea shortage looming ahead, began last spring to

regularly order £lb more than her needs, and she has a pile of precious little packages with which to relieve the misery of tealess friends. The now familiar queues at the doors of the Home and Colonial Stores, Maypole Stores, and others, not only in London, but throughout the country, tell how very general the shortage is. "Unless people will take substitute for tea, we shall get down to loz ration" is the verdict of one tea merchant. Now is the time for a Discoverer (worthy of initials) to find a substitute for tea. Tea has been largely a substitute for alcohol; but what is to substitute tea? The one foodstuff that will not _ run short this winter is potatoes. Last winter we were compelled to substitute rice and dried in place of potatoes; and Press "literature was prollinc in reasons why, from a health point of view, any substitute was better than potatoes. Now that potatoes is the one abundant food, the only essential food entirely home-produced, we are urged to eat potatoes. I remember, Ion? years ago, reading' a poem, written perhaps in defenco of the smoker, which, after every gentle, humanising verse, concluded: " Thus think and smoke tobacco!" Thus think—and eat potatoes! All the hidden virtues and hitherto obscured properties of potatoes are being brought to light. We are a long way from starvation yet; if we reach starvation we can, starve like BritonS. But we cannot accept an unworthy peace. The result of the'' allotment gardens throughout the country has been so good that Ave are urged to dig deeper and plant and sow more liberally for next year. I told you of my A'ery small and -crude experiment of turning my tangled gardenbed into food-producing plots. The poppies and cornflowers and nasturtiums and sunflowers would come up, and, coming up, seemed to say, " You Avanted us once." And, like loA'es Avhich we haA'e outgroAvn, and for Avhich Ave have still a lingering tenderness, I hoed the poppies and marigolds, the wallflowers and sunfioAvers, only Avhen I must. But, allowing for my reluctance to say to the flowers,

"This is not your time—tho earth has little need of you," I did have some practical results. Instead of mignonette and night-scented stock, my crude efforts with the spade and the rake have produced enough onions (unobtainable last winter) to pickle and store for this winter. And my marrow-bed has produced enough marrows to hang, according to food xn~ structions, till after Christmas.