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mm — ■ ■ wu■—1i—"■nili"■ OJJR…

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mm — ■ ■ wu ■ —1 i—" ■ nil i" ■ OJJR LONDON LETTER. II [From Our Special Correspondent."] If was the dullest General Election on record, so far as London was concerned at any rate. Nobody seemed to care very much about it. There were no crowds round the polling-booths, and no little groups of ex- cited men getting to high words about can- didates and policies. Very few people wore any colours, and there were no gaily-decked vehicles careering about the streets convey- ing voters to the poll. The weather was wet and miserable, and the, wh^'le business wa £ Very dull, indeed, as dull as a guardians' election in the country. The wemen appear to have voted in fairly good numbers. They called and marked their ballot-papers on their wav to or from the butcher's or the grocer's. A good many of them, how- ever, waited for their husband's home- coming, and for the first time in the his- tory of this country husbands and wives went together to record their votes for Parliamentary candidates. The women's vote is the mystery of the election. Every- body is wondering what they did with it. One hears of cases of households being divided, but I imagine that, generally speak- ing, wives voted the same way as their hus- bands. It is going to be the finest Cr.ristraas for five years. Everybody is quite convinced of that and determined to do their bit to make it so. The first peace Christmas after four Christmascs of war! Surely it must be a really happy Christmas! It is, at any rate, going tip be a better one than many children can remember. The toy-shops are full of Wonderful, things and of enthusiastic, eager, little people with their fathers Jind mothers. There is not such a great variety cf toys as we w?te accustomed to see before the. war, but there is quite a good variety for all that. War novelties, it appears, are still favourites with the boys, and aeroplanes and .submarines and tanks and battleships sell L 'like winking. Toys are up in. price, of course, like everything else, but lathers and uncles who are prepared to do the thing in style and not to worry about price can get pretty weft everything a properly-con- stituted child can reasonably want London generally will not do much work after Christmas Eve until the following e. Monday. The passing of the shadow of war has gre-tly encouraged the Christmas spirit, and there will be real holiday- making and festivity this year. -There will be home parties, of course, but many people are going away for the holiday, and board- ing-houses at poplar seaside resorts are going to do good business. Some people .who would prefer to stay at home arc going away because their domestics have demanded a Christmas holiday to go and soo their own people. The fashionable hotels and restaurants will have quite a pre- war appearance on Christmas Day. The habit- of dining in restaurants instead of having the fmily party at home has grewn up of latc years, and alfeady some of the most popular places have all seats booked for Christmas Day and for .New Year's Eve. as well. I was told the other, Jay that the pawn- shops in munition areas arc full of fur coats. The buying of fur coats was so popular with rmmitionettes that coats of a particular type were nicknamed "munition- workers' overalls." And now, people say, there arc no more high wages for munition workers, and so they are- selling their coats. I don't know whether the pawnshops are actually full of them; but it is the kind of thing that people would say now that the high wages have stopped. The tales they used to tell' about the money, earned and. the way it was spent! There was the plan who bought, a grand piano, had it plated at £ nc end of the parlour, and then bought another similar instrment for the other end. He didn't like things lop-sided: It must have been a good-sized parlour! Many people accepted that story for gospel truth. If half the stories bf munition workers' extravagance were true there ought to be a lot of useiul.things picked up cheaply. London has never been so full. The Wk- t- End Ls crowded day and night; ther, are qlaeu at theatres, queues at cinemas, queues at' restaurants, and queues at tea- shops, which, by the way, may now supply cakes without limit. Hotels are full up, and people go from door to door seeking admit- tance. and finding none. The Govcrament still has some of the largest hotels, and does not seem anxious to give up possession. The shortage of hotel accommodation is a great inconvenience to all sorts of people, but it come8 specially bard on officers and men on leave from France," for whom arrangements-1 have now been made. whereby hotels reserve beds each night. Because of the lack of hotel accommodation not long agq a largo number of American sailors v ere provided with beds in the Law Courts. One of them remarked one morning that it "as pretty hot where he oamo from in America, but ho guessed it was nothing' to this country. It turned out that they had put his bed too close to the heating apparatus. As a result of the overcrowding of London the means of transport are inadequate. At certain times of the day the tubes arc uncomfortably packed, and there is a shortage of 'buses and taxicabs. • The theatres #are to Rave' their usual Christmas programmes, and there will prob- ably be more children than usual in the audiences, as the reasons for not being out after dark are not so urgent as they were last Year. Drurv Lane and Lyceum will have pantomimes, "The Babes in the Wood" and "Cinderella," respectively. "The chief spectacular feature at the former will be a peace pageant. "Cinderella is the subject, too, of a ballet which Miss Margaret Morris 18 giving at Chelsea, with two plays to be acted by children. "Peter Pan," of course, IS  us, for the fifteenth year, and nWh. us, or t e teenth year, and He the Rainbow Ends" is -bcin re- vived, though only for matinees, at the Vic- toria Palace. At the Coliseum "Children's Tales will be produced by the Russian ballet. A. E. M.

[No title]

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OVER THE RHINE. I

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. A PAYING BUSINESS.-I

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WILHELM ON "RATIONS." I

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[No title]

I ! FUN AND FANCY. I.

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