tle flock with a
murmuring, heavenly, sing-song voice, whilst the children with
untroubled voices are like larks in a heaven above Monte Carlo,
singing, "_Sancta, sancta, nostra Dama priez pour nous!_"

I'd rather live at Rocca Bruna than in the main seat of the
Principality of Monaco. So would we all. But the devil has got such a
terrible pull.

LETTERS OF TRAVEL

XVI. FROM LONDON

You would hardly think that the greatest drama in world history is
being played out in Europe, and that England was taking a part. You
would hardly think that England herself was in mortal danger. London
astonishes the traveller. It seems entirely given over to trivial and
alien interest. Betting on horses has never reached such dimensions.
Whilst the street-criers of Belgrade keep calling "_Politika,
Politika!_" and the attention of Berlin is ruefully pinned down to
Reparations, and Paris is dignified and serious and national in both
newspapers and conversation, you hear nothing in the streets of London
but, "What's the latest, Bill?" and "I can tell you of a 'orse."

In the vestry of a fashionable church the admirers of a certain earnest
preacher come to see him after the sermon. Says a lady, "Well, padre,
can you tell us the great secret?"

The priest pauses and reflects.

"I suppose by the great secret you mean the love of God? I could not
tell you that at once."

"Oh, no," says the lady, "I don't mean that. I mean who will be winner
on June the first."

Derby Day is given in the Press the prominence of a grand European
event. Descriptions of what the ladies wear at Ascot occupy as many
columns in the newspaper as the condition of four million unemployed
occupy lines. The attention of the public is engulfed in second-rate
sport. It is not as if there were a real boom in sport. The war has
effected men's physique and their nerves so that most sporting
exhibitions are of the second class. Strictly speaking, it is not an
interesting cricket year. But the interest in the county competitions
has been whipped up by the Press till people buy special editions of
papers, not for the latest news from Silesia or Turkey, or of the great
strikes, but to know how Middlesex or Lancashire is getting on.
England versus Australia is greatly starred. England loses matches,
and the nation seems as much plunged in gloom as she was at the
failures of the old South African War. In the golf and tennis and polo
competitions th