CITY OF CONTRASTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 196, 20 August 1934, Page 10

CITY OF CONTRASTS

LONDON AS IT IS TO-DAY (By ROBERT J. TERRY.) London is still quoted as the hub of the world, but I should say that this only applies to-day as regards finance. There is still plenty of money in London for big propositions but that fact will not interest the bulk of my readers. Suffice to say there should be no trouble in floating a gold mine proposition if it did not show more than the average risk, you ask a big price for it, were content with a small amount of cash and a few positions could be found for the poor relations of the financiers. I think, in the near future, there will be an abundance of money available for very large land settlement schemes, especially if immigration is restricted. What happens to be the fashion has a great influence in London. Like most other large cities, London is made up of contrasts. We hear a great deal about London fogs, her dull grey winter days, but one must admit that at least parts of London can be very beautiful when she dons her summer clothing. If the trees were evergreen they would have the dull, gloomy appearance that her smokegrimed buildings have. But the leaves are re-born each spring-time and I suppose as the years have rolled by, gardeners and municipalities have found trees and shrubs with foliage best suited to withstand the smokecontaminated atmosphere. Just now the foliage is at its best, and you come across it in many unexpected quarters. You may stand at Charing Cross station and watch the thousands of all nationalities coming and going, a perfect babel of tongues, in fact, you have to raise your voice somewhat when you arc speaking. The glass roof allows hardly any light to penetrate. You feel enwrapped in a seething, e ver-restless surge of humanity and dull masonry. Walk out of the station a hundred and fifty yards down the narrow street and you could imagine that you were fifty miles away in the country with the hum of harvesting machinery in the distance; the hum comes from the Thames Embankment traffic, trams, motor-buses, pedestrians, etc., in one continual stream; but in the garden Mother Nature reigns supreme. The grass is green, has probably been rolled and cut for a couple of hundred years, the trees and shrubs shut out the view of the busy city, wild wood pigeons (or would 1 bo more correct in saying, tame wild wood pigeons), arc cooing to their mates, carrying material to their nest, taking a portion of stenographers’ and workmen’s lunches from their hands* ami, in the case of some regular visitors, flying on their shoulders and taking breadcrumbs from between their lips, providing the cheeky London sparrow docs not snap up the tasty morsel whilst the wood pigeon is thinking about it. I suppose the upkeep is found by the hire of chairs, but there are also a fair number of seats for which one docs not have to pay. In the evenings there is often a band, quite frequently from a crack regiment, when, naturally, there is quite a revenue from the chairs. There are numerous similar, what might be termed parklcts, in and around the city proper. It is rather remarkable the love that the average Londoner has for birds and flowers; it is a good trait in their ch. .acter and should be further encouraged. On the contrary, it has unfortunately been discouraged, and I have in mind the London poor—l don’t mean the new foreign Jew poor. There was a time when the English poor in the slums of the East End were extensive purchasers of pot plants and English birds to keep as pets. Plants did not live many weeks in most cases as they had been grown under glass, but as they were sold at about three for a shilling that did not matter much, and one cannot help thinking that the placing of two or three pot plants at the window would be an inducement to clean window-panes and curtains. As regards the birds, some possibly well-meaning people, who could not get prominency in any other walk of life but had recreations of their own, eventually managed to have restrictions put upon the keeping of; British birds in captivity. The birds chiefly kept in the East End were linnets and chaffinches; they only cost a few pence and the hen birds were released from the catchers’ nets. Chaf finoh singing contests were quite a feature of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning East End recreation. They were chiefly held in tobacconists’ and barbers’ shops and in the small beer-houses where spirits were not sold. Needless to say the owner of the birds naturally gave them every attention, even apart from any love that he may have had for them. Now what have these busybodies, so-called, social reformers given the East End working man in return for taking away his bird? Nothing! “So he goes to the dogs.” He can go to dog racing every evening in the week and, in addition, Saturday afternoons and Sundays; he goes and takes his women-folk with him, ami they leave a portion of their wages there and go short during the week of fruit and vegetables to their dietary, so that they may again go to the dugs; and the goody-goody person says: “But it’s only a mechanic hare, don’t you know, and the dogs really enjoy it, and they have muzzles on so that they cannot bite each other,” ask you for a subscription to buy handkerchiefs for natives and go home and dine off stewed trapped rabbits. Churches are empty, except cathedrals. A huge cathedral such as Peterborough may have between 80 and 90 worshippers on a Sunday evening, whilst tourists walk about and gaze at the stained glass windows, pictures and carvings. Within two hundred yards of the altar, thousands of people have been brought in from the country villages by bus to parade the main streets of the town, shops are open, barrows are in the street, hotels are open and arc patronised by the women equally as much as by the men. If you ask those in the crowd who reside in the city why they don’t go to church the probable answer is that the parson can’t tell you which is the right church. If you pick out the village or farm dweller, he will tell you that the church is too greedy and that the tithes, collected by the churches from the farms, have bankrupt many during the depression. If a farmer cannot pay his contribution, it is placed in the hands of the court to collect and cattle or implements are seized so that they may be sold at auction. I understand that there is to be a Royal Commission to inquire into the question of tithes but only last week some of the leading bishops in the House of Commons or House of Lords asked that the Government would promise not to du

anything to check the collecting of these tithes. The whole thing is wrong. If the church loses the rural population she has lost everything. The town already has been lost. There is dog-racing, cinemas, variety shows, vaudeville, wrestling, boxing, day trips to the Continent, week-end trips to Paris, tennis, cricket, in fact all sports are very prominent on Sundays. England, London especially, is fast forgetting its old traditions and is aping the Continent. There was a time, and not so many years ago, when an English merchant’s word was equal to a contract. To-day very few of these men remain. Oh yes, I know their names are still up, but they are owned by companies and certainly in London an increase in number of these companies is controlled by foreign Jews. 'The British Jew, especially if he has been British for a couple of generations, is British, and in the majority of cases, honest —a few quite as dependable as what is now termed the old-fashioned British merchant, and I think the time is approaching ween such men will have to decide in which rank they will stand' —British or foreign. In many instances the sou of the original merchant of an old-established business is retained as its nominal head. His duty is only to receive callers; ho has to transfer them quickly to the real head under the name of submanage. Titled persons, and what are termed the old aristocrats, are freely used in business. Thousands of what are termed gentry are to-day spongers or harpies. It is the fashion to be sorry for them and I am for the aged, but why should one be sorry for the younger generation? In animal life, you expect the thoroughbred to be superior in at least one direction to the common herd, but I’m damned if I can sec it in the young generation of human so-called thoroughbred. Why should one be sorry for young men whose families for the past few generations have, had good housing, plenty uf good food, time, for recreation and sport and for at least two generations all the so-called advantages of university education, or in other words, were ex-public schoolboys; and this crowd, with few exceptions (all honour to the exceptions) are looking for very soft billets or sponge on their friends. Their one aim appears to bo to sleep or drowse through the hours of day-light. More than one (still in his twenties) has told me that he can get no enjoyment out of the daytime and that he waits for night when they foregather and play at still being monied persons, unless they are fortunate enough to meet visitors, cousins, etc., from Africa, India, or the colonies who are still men, but think <; it worth, footing the bill to meet the aristocrat. A very large percentage indeed of the fashionable young men are weeds, in a daily half-drowse; cocktails, jazz and their partners spur their nervous system for a few hours each night or early morning. They are half-dazed throughout the day and even a motor ride of any distance makes them tired, don’t you know! “ Weally, I had quite a long wide, don’t you know!” Naturally the womenfolk follow the lead, to a great extent, but candidly, I think they are much better than the men. It may be that such a number of women took up positions and had to rely on themselves during the war that the mothers have passed it on to this generation,, but I should say that the women are more intelligent than in the past, and the men decidedly less, Granted that many of the women have become gold-diggers or harpies, but possibly if we knew the truth wo would find that in many cases they were supporting or partly supporting their aristocratic menfolk. One has to remember there are tliousands of houses in the West End of London it which monied people or gen try, as they are termed, lived and kept at least half a dozen servants, carriages, coachmen, etc. To-day those houses are either empty with notices “To Let” or “For Sale,” or they are boarding-houses, or single rooms are let as sc-called flatlets. For the last week 1 am living in one; a portion of my rent is paid for the aristcratic surroundings. My room or flatlet was at one time a large bedroom. It still contains the grate which burned coal; you are quite positive it burned coal because the original paper is on the walls and the pattern on the paper is nicely toned down with the accumulated coal-smoke of many years. It is more prominent on the frescoed cornices and ceiling and very distinctive at the edge of cracks. There is a Chippendale table in the room—l am careful not to use it —it looks too fragile, but I suppose it should balance the want of modern conveniences. 1 have been granted the latch key and climb three flights of stairs to my room. In the morning the houseman announces that my bath is prepared, I think his feelings would be hurt if I did not let him prepare it, and I have gone up in the estimation of all the residents by having received two letters with crests. When asked what paper I would like in the morning, I thought I would go the whole hog, so I said The Times. Joking apart, it is rather sad to think of what this district once was, but it is still more sad when you think that practically nothing can be done to alter it. The outer walls of the houses are so solidly built that they will last possibly for a couple of hundred years. The owners will have to go on paying a high ground rent, rates and taxes, therefore they occupy one room in the house or live in the country. Those .who have a little larger income live in modern flats but as these are let by the year, it was either this or an hotel and I had got tired of the hotel. There are two things in London which have nut deteriorated —I take off my hat to the London bus driver and the London policeman. I am convinced that if the London bus driver can sec sufficient space to drop haif-a-crown between his wheel and the next vehicle he has ample room, and I should say that they are truly descendants of the London cabby, for he had the same idea. One misses the repartee that the old cabby possessed, but it can still be found amongst the more elderly taxi-drivers. One day in Bond Btreet, I saw two accidents in a few moments which caused a congestion of traffic, and the front guard on a large private car bumped the back of a taxi, driven by the old-school driver. He put his head round the corner and said: “Hey, you with the button-hole, are yer howt sight-seeing or laming to drive?’’ The rather elderly, aristocratic driver, ignored the remark, but a young person, probably his daughter, drew her finger across the bottom of her nose and managed to emit a sound which is sometimes referred to as a “raspberry” and which brought a smile and a wave of the hand from the taxi-driver. Elderly taxi-drivers (who, by the way, never have any change, well, unless you’re going away without paying) and young aristocrats

of both sexes seem to have a perfect understanding. It is fairly common at night to see a taxi-driver of the old school being assisted in his manoeuvres through the traffic by the legs of his passengers being thrust through the windows. It is possible that they have been playing bridge so strenuously that their hands and arms are really tired, don’t you know, but noblesse oblige, endeavour to help the poor taxi-men by indicating whether it is left or right turn or straight on. That is the fashion just nt present, probably due to the fact that a titled person described the intimate lives of some leaders of fashion in a recent divorce case of prominence and so it is copied until a new sensation arrives. The London police have been noted for many years, but I think that they arc even a little bit better than in the years gone by; good physique, intelligent, even-tempered and at least some of them have a good sense of humour. I induced one of them to step the traffic whilst I went across the road by telling him that I had seen a picture of a London policeman holding up the traffic by just raising his hand whilst a lit 1 le child walked across the road and I always wondered if the picture had been painted from life —that I felt like a baby then, when I saw the traffic. He said: “Do you want to get across to your car, sir?” I said: “No, bus.” So we looked at each other and grinned and he said: “Do you still want io know if tho picture was true?” I said: “That’s what I’m waiting for.” so we walked across the road. Talking of policemen, brings to mind the women police. It is a question tAat sometimes crops up in New Zealand. so a few words may not be out of place. On the Sunday morning after Ascot week I decided I would go to Hyde Park aud stroll along the path known as the. Church or Dress Parade. It runs by the side of Rotten Row. Rotten Row is about a chain-wide track on which men and women ride horses for various reasons—a few for a good healthy gallop, others to show their clothes or the prestige which is supposed to result from a small para graph in fashion notes that Mrs. Hyphen was noticed cantering in the Row. On this day there were eleven riders and a mounted policeman in case of a horse bolting; eight of them looked quite ordinary, a party of three created special attention; one was a nigger prize-fighter, attended by what appeared tu be aristocrats, judging by their vacant day-time expression. Walking along tho path which is bordered by chairs, I saw a policewoman, so I decided to have a chat with her. I said: “Good morning! 1 knew this park quite well at one time, but have lived in Australia and New Zea land for some time.” She replied that she knew New Zealand and had lived for some years there. I said; “Do you mind me asking you some questions?” She said; “No, go ahead.” So 1 said: “'What is your duty here?” and •she asked: “Do you mean this morning?” I said: “Well, yes.” She said: “To keep perambulators off this path.” She went on to say: “This is the Sunday after Ascot and there should be quite a display of the latest dresses, but I’ve not seen a single one. It is no longer a fashionable parade and the aristocrat might meet a milliner or a manicurist who looked better turned out than herself.” 1 said: “But there is a crowd of people here and the seats are all full.” She smiled, and replied: “Yes. it is surprising how the mob is content to copy those who are quoted as their betters. All Loudon is doing that.” I said; “But what are your duties other times?” She replied: “Just the same as an ordinary policeman, we have no extra duties.” She went on to explain that there were sixty London policewomen and that wouldn’t be much in eight million, that they origin ated during the war when they were to be used in warning soldiers on leave against designing women, gold-diggers, etc. I said: “Tut, tut! Surely those in authority, social reformers, etc., do not have to protect mere men against women?” She replied: “Well, if you were a policewoman you would know that a lot of talk about men and women is just twaddle and if you say fifty-fifty you’re being kind to the girls. ’ ’ .1 asked her if it were not a fact that the policewomen were engaged to look after girls and guard them. She replied: “ What have you to guard them against? Take for instance last Sunday, which was a very hot day. Was it not better for yuung men and women to be lying on the grass in the evening or afternoon, for that matter, even if they did occasionally kiss each other, than to follow in the footsteps of their richer sisters and brothers who could afford to kiss in motor-cars, apartments or private rooms of hotels?” She reminded me that a few minutes back I had said that I thought it was terrible that the working people had to live in terraces of houses, street after street all alike, the front door opening on to the stone pavement, families living in two or three rooms, no bathroom, born in such houses, married and dying in them, with no goal to aim at, their chief aim in life being to keep their jobs so that they might not lose even the. means of living in such conditions. And the policewoman said; “Don’t you think it is good for them to come in the park and lie on the grass, even if they do lie in each other’s arms? Where are they to go if they don’t come here? To the dogs and waste money? To the stuffy, smoke-laden atmosphere of a picturehouse. for those things are the only alternatives? And if it were compulsory for me to turn them out of the park. I'd resign my job.” I said: “Well, there are at least a few women in New Zealand who think that you have very special duties.” She replied: “Oh, I know the type! They talk about wicked men deceiving girls, and I should say that their real grievance is that no man has ever attempted to deceive them. Such women are not quite normal. ’ ’ I said: “Well, the London policewomen are certainly a sensible crowd.” She replied: “If you join the force with faddist ideas, you soon get commonsense knocked into you.” So again wo smiled at each other and I said good-bye. well content with the time that I had spent in the chat to the London policewoman. I could tell many things about the altered London because at times I mix with those who know: merchants, a few editors, reporters and more than one society Writer. They say that the slump of 1932 is over, and I suppose that this is a reaction, so profits from gold shares are turned into champagne and new dresses. One fashion editress said that on many nights more than 10,000 people in evening dress thronged West End restaurants. Foreigners hear of London’s doings and come by air or

lail to such an extent that London is now known as the “gay city after dark,” and the gaieties, sometimes absurd, are led by the highest. Home life and home entertainment is becoming a thing of the past in London. It is said there are more places where amusement is provided after dark in the West End than at any time since the war. Two-thirds of * the smart restaurants of to-day did not exist in the boom period of 1929. Huge hotels which were built at the boom time and have been white elephants since, arc now filled to their fullest capacity. A person who certainly knows the upper circle’s life says that the London hotels now enter into the night-life of their people to a greater extent than in any part of the world. Ou one night this season, the Save.. Hotel alone entertained nearly 3000 people, all in evening dress and it has to compete with the monster new hotels; there is the Dorchester, in Park Lane, and the new Grosvenor House. With one or two exceptions, noted houses in the Strand, etc., now cater lor those on a lower rung down the ladder. No city has lost its great houses of other days as steadily as London. Noted homes and exclusive clubs have been converted into restaurants or, should 1 say, half restaurants, half vaudeville shows? and through the open door one hears the stringent jazz, so great a contrast to when the dour wuuld have been opened silently by a well-trained footman. 'The West End has adopted the snack-bar. Lady editresses will tell you that the London women arc better dressed than a year ago aud will go on to explain that this is probably due to the fact of a larger number of visitors from Paris, Deauville, etc., etc. These visitors are drifting to London like moths to the bright candle. With all due respect, 1 cannot agree that the Continental woman improves the real, typical Englishwoman. When you see a countrybred English lady with the bloom which is imparted by the English country atmosphere, there is something about her which puts her on a pedestal above the mixed crowd. Unfortunately, such men and women are far apart in the crowd. With the idea of prosperity, there is more private entertaining, but it is not in the well-ordered home of the aristocrat as in the past. The entertaining is in restaurants and hotels. To get down to bedrock, most of them have lost their hoiAcs, live in flats, therefore have neither the accommodation nor the staff for entertaining, hence the hotel. It might bo said, does this affect us here in New Zealand? Strange as it may seem, it most decidedly does. The servants had joints of meat in the old days; it was the fashion for the household to have a joint of meat at least once a day. even if it were sent from the dinner-table untouched. The hotels and restaurants put up fancy dishes with foreign names, and charge for the frills and froth, and so we, in New Zealand, suffer because there is considerably less honest meat, butter and cheese. Is it that London is saying: “How long will this talk of prosperity last? Therefore is it not wise to eut. drink and be merry for to-morrow wp may die?” Society, possibly because of this feeling, is always looking for something fresh. The most absurd, childish things are done without any comment, provided the person is of a high social position who gives the first lead. Fortunately, there is still a sprinkling of real gentlemen and gentlewomen— Nature’s gentlemen and gentlewomen, just as there is a sprinkling of these in all tho other grades, from the highest to the lowest. Despite smoking, drink ing, dogs, smoke-laden cinemas, etc., you see healthy young men and women, bicycling into the country, clothed in

shorts; smiling, happy, fairly healthy faces. On the one hand, the Communist and the ignorant workers, but with the sprinkling of the thinking worker and a growing percentage of intelligent young black shirts. Will the Continent absorb England with all her old good traditions? Or after the. battle, and the battle must come fairly soon, will this sprinkling be sufficient to rise from the mire and re-populate the beautiful English countryside again with sensible folks?