LIFE IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 May 1919, Page 3

LIFE IN ENGLAND.

AST INTERESTING LETTEB. Sapper Russell Matthews, who was in the New Plymouth Borough Engineer's office prior to enlisting, has written an interesting letter to Mr Cook. He writes from Boscombe, Bournemouth, under date 17th February, and says, inter alia;— The engineers are at present stationed at Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, but in two weeks' time we are all being moved to Birmingham. We are very disappointed at having to move, for we are all billetted in private houses here, while in Birmingham there are only huts. The cold has been almost unbearable lately, and as this is supposed to be the warmest spot in Britain, I don't know what we will strike up in the Midlands. Every lake and pond here is crowded with skaters, but so far we have had no snow, so haven't had a chance to go tobogganing. Bournemouth is the prettiest town I have ever seen, and, in fact, the prettiest one can ever 6ee in England. It is only 80 years old, and is a health and pleasure resort (population 80,000). All the streets in the'better class quarters are beautifully laid out with avenues of trees and shrubs, under many of which are well-laid-out lawns. The streets are practically all laid out in curves instead of the poor system of squares a3 is done in New Zealand. In dozens of cases new streets have been formed through more or leas thickly wooded property, but instead of hacking down all the trees they leave practically all, with the result that dozens of them come right in the sentre of paths, while many encroach to nearly the" centre of the roadway. In the latter case the stone kerbing is brought out around the trunks in graceful curves, and then run back to its correct alignment. Many streets are planted that are only 50 feet in breadth—what about New Plymouth ?—and, what ia more, quite busy streets too. The theatre, golf links, tennis courts, trams, piers and parks are all municipal, the borough council doing everything possible to make the place attractive for visitors.

I have been to Dublin, but must confess it was a waste of time, for the town is the poorest and dirtiest place I ever want to see. The only decent street (Sackville) ia a mass of ruins owing to the rebellion in 1916, while the other streets are covered in mud and slush, although they are paved and flagged. I went to an open-air Sinn Fein meeting of 10,000 people, but was disgusted with it after 10 minutes, so cleared out. The Dublin park is easily the best sight in the city. It is 1,700 acres in area, and has some fine trees and statues in it.

I have been in Halifax, Bolton, Manchester, London and Weymouth for periods varying from one to four days. I met my brother (whom I had not seen for 14 years) at Weymouth, which is 30 miles from here. I was mo&t fascinated with the quaint old town. The streets are fearfully narrow, the main street having an eight-foot roadway and two six foot paths. I went over the castle and got a splendid sight from it of Portland harbor with part of the English fleet lying at anchor there. At Bolton I went through an enormous foundry, where I saw 5000 h.p. marine engines, recoil chambers for heavy guns, mines and dozens of various parts of war and peace machinery being made. The draughting room had quite 50 drawing tables in it, while the office staff ran in to 150 men and women. I went through a small factory near here, where shells and small parts of aeroplane engines were made. Every lathe, drill, etc., was run by a woman, most of them being of well-born and wealthy families. Things are very slack now the war is over, the men here being employed for a few hours a day in filling in- old trenches and cleaning up generally. Leave can be obtained at any time, but I am waiting for two months or so before I take mine, as the weather now is deadly. I will be in England for quite six months, from what I can learn, so it will be about October or September before I arrive in New Zealand again. 1 haven't tasted butter since I arrived (December 12th), and sugar is still rather scarce, as well as jam, but one gets stacks of other food, so there's no chance of starving. Aeroplanes are flying over here every day, and one soon gets used to them. I hope to go to Paris by air later. The machines used on the Lon-don-Paris run carry up to 50 passengers and Mr Page, of Handley-Page, says they haven't anywhere near reached the limit as to carrying capacity. This country is in a rotten state—nothing but strikes, strikes, strikes, and I believe there will be a bit of fighting here before long. The workmen are getting ridiculous wages everywhere and have never been so well off, yet the coalminers are out for a 6-hour day aud an increase of 30 per cent on present high wages. All our boats are held up owing to dockyard engineers' strike, so we have all been put back another, month or so through them. A girl of 16 years has just been brought up for stealing. She was earning £6 a week ( £312 per annum) at munition work, and there are thousands of them earning even up to £6OO a year. No wonder they won't go back to house-maids again when the wage in this line is high at £1 per week! The raUway engine-drivers are demanding £1 a day (8-hour day, meal time included), and yet the living here is no more expensive than in New Zealand.