Primary tabs
Transcription
[page 48]
93
10th INSTALMENT.
15th November, 1916. I had been told that the pea soup variety of London fog had of late years become a rarity, but this year looks like making up for lost time - or fogs. A clean fog is bad enough, but these London affairs seem to have got mixed up with smoke from thousands of chimneys until they assume a greenish black color. They penetrate everywhere and completely disorganize London. For a while the vehicles grope their way about and much tooting or horns, and head-lights which at ordinary times would be dazzling but are now a blur in the fog, visible perhaps fifteen or twenty feet only. After a whilex they give it up and motorbuses, taxis etc. begin to crawl back to their garages, the drivers finding it dangerous to stay out longer. Since the Zeppelin visits started these are the only occasions on which London is allowed to light up and as the one I saw was the first bad fog of the season, there was a hurried overhauling of lamps and fittings both on vehicles and in buildings. A thousand-candle-power roaring petroleum flare set up as a beacon in the Strand near Trafalgar Square as a guide to stray vehicles, was invisible at 100 feet - just a hissing noise in the fog. By five o'clock in the evening practically all surface traffic had stopped and it was said that footsteps could be heard in Piccadilly - surely a record for this, the noisiest corner on earth. The Tubes were the only unaffected means of travel and the scramble on the platforms and in the subways reminded one of the rush for shelter on Zeppelin nights to these excellent dugouts.
Extravagance is still the order of the day in London, despite the fact that prices are soaring upwards. The Carlton, Princes, Romanos, The Ritz, The Savoy, in fact all the expensive restaurants, are crowded nightly and unless a table is reserved before about 6.30, xxxxxxxxxxxx accommodation cannot be guaranteed. Look into any theatre and you will see a thousand people or more, rocking with