From a New Book.

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 13

From a New Book.

JARROW, A DEAD TOWN The most remarkable giant liner in the world is probably the “Mauretania, for she is nearly 30 years old and is still one of the fastest vessels atloat. Her record, both for speed and Safety, is superb. We are proud of her Now the Mauretania was launched at Wallesend, just across the river from Jarrow; and she has lasted longer than Jarrow. She is still alive and throbbing, but Jarrow is dead. As a real town, a piece of urban civilisation. Jarrow can never have been alive. There is easily more comfort and luxury on one deck of the Mauretania than there can ever have been at any time in Jarrow, which even at its best, when everybody was working in it, must obviously have been a mean little conglomeration of narrow, monotonous streets of stunted and ugly houses, a barracks,cynically put together so that shipbuilding workers could get some food and sleep between shifts. Anything—strange as it may seem—appears to have been good enough for the men who could build ships like the Mauretania. But in those days, at least they were working. Now Jarrow is a derelict town. . . My guide book devotes one short sentence to Jarrow: “A busy town (35,590 inhabitant), has large ironworks and shipbuilding yards.” It is time this was amended into “an idle and ruined town (35,590 inhabitants, wondering what is to become of them), had large ironworks and can still show what is left of shipbuilding yards.”— An English Journal', by J. B. ’Priestley.