HEART AND SOUL.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 17, 18 September 1915, Page 7

HEART AND SOUL.

ENGLAND AT WAR LADY'S MESSACE TO MEN AT THE FRONT. The following letter, addressed to , the men at the front, from a. wellknown lady who has more than 20 relatives lighting with the forces, was forwarded to and published by the Daily Chronicle recently.) There are at present a group of papers trying to break your hearts. I need not name them. We hero know them. They say people in England arc not thinking of the war, the men are slacking and striking, the women playing and dressing. Well, it is not true First, people hero do not think of the war when they are asleep, and that is all. We write war, read war, talk war, sing war, and dream war. I go a good deal in omnibuses and third-class carriages. The talk is of nothing but the war, generally with the refrain: "My father—he's at the front; my boy—he's enlisted; my brother—he's home on leave; my young man that I've been to see in camp." If a person asks for news, it's always war news they mean; other news is asked for half apologetically. In the hig shops most of the departments are almost empty; but three are always full—the tobacco department, and compressed groceries, and the department for sale of knitting materials. The tailor's best advertisement is "Field kit ready in 24 hours" the big dressmakers are making shirts and socks. Lately hundreds of Cockneys have . started noticing the direction of the wind, with the sole thought of Flan- , ders and the poisonous gases. Every , evening as the shops and the offices close, the men fall into ranks in the street and march off to drill, the men of the National .Reserve. They tell you that recruiting is slack. That is also a lie. The men are coming in by tens of thousands a week, rising bigger and bigger figures when something special takes place, j such as the poison gas or the sinking of the Lusitania, when there were queues waiting outside some of the London recruiting offices. You hear of the strikes, but no one j tells of the men who are not striking, the vast majority. Did you know I i that the Arsenal is working between ,2 and an 80 hour week, with one {Sunday off a month, Sheffield between SO and 90, and the girls in the small ! ims factories until they faint on the j noor? Did you hear of the men in i tiio lyddite rooms dyed permanently ! yellow, the men in the danger room, ) each in their iron cage, the men that ! ..; erriate between the open furnace | doors and the icy sea winds at the i iron foundries? Even the men on the Clyde only struck after they had finished their battleship contracts at record speed. We go a little to the "pictures," j and lately the women have bought themselves summer clothes. That much is true. But authors are ruinI ed, theatres shaky, Earl's Court a reI i'ugee camp, the White City and the , ( rysfcal Palace barracks, racing ' stands and country houses hospitals. 1 ll does not ieok as if we are amusing .ourselves much, docs it? "Let the country wake," shrieks i the Yellow Press. I do assure you, ' j sleeping is the harder thing. "Does i the country realise?" Well, people , ! who are working 1-1 hours* a day have .! not much time for meditation and ; \ none for lamentation. They have to < [ keep going. And women have to keep smiling faces for their children. Pos- ; sibly, I will concede so much, in our ! | desire to "keep the flag flying" we . 1 do a little flaunting of it, to he on [ the safe side. But not working for ! you, not thinking of you, not caring ' about you— ' . No, that is not exactly what we are doing.