o do it. I suppose
that London is very badly managed; and here again I think the advantage
lies with us, for I am certain that our District Council would never allow
such a state of things. Probably the LORD MAYOR is lazy.

The funny thing is that there is plenty of good light, only they don't know
how to apply it. Every night, directly it begins to be dark, great streams
of light are turned on from all parts of the city; but would you believe
it, they are directed, not downwards so that they could illumine the
street, but upwards into the empty sky! If the Chairman of our District
Council could see this, how he would laugh! I wish you would tell him.

Then there is coal. I went, as we arranged, first to the Jerusalem Hotel,
but it was like ice. When I asked the hotel people why the central heating
was not on, they said that there is no coal. At least it seems that there
is coal, but no one to deliver it. Just think of our coal-merchant
returning such a reply to us when the cellar was getting empty. But in
London they seem to be ready to put up with any excuse. Why the men who
ought to deliver the coals are not made to, I can't imagine. Anyhow, as I
was freezing, I moved into lodgings, where there is coal, although an
exorbitant price is asked for each scuttle.

The great topic of conversation everywhere has been some new speculation
called the War Loan, and I have to confess that as it is so well spoken of
and is to pay the large dividend of 5-1/4 per cent. I have arranged to invest
something for each of us in it. I don't know who the promoter--a Mr. BONAR
LAW--is, but it would be awful for us if he turned out to be a JABEZ
BALFOUR in disguise. Still, nearly all investment is a gamble, and we can
only hope for the best. He must have some peculiar position or the papers
would not support his venture as they do; and there is even a campaign of
public speakers through the country, I am told, taking his prospectus as
their text and literally imploring the people to invest. Quite like the
South Sea Bubble we read of in MACAULAY; but please Heaven it won't turn
out to be another.

I asked the landlady here about it, but she knew nothing, except that her
family could not afford to put anything in. "But your daughters earn very
good money," I said. "That's true," she replied, "but all that they have
over after their clothes, poor girls, they spend on the theatre or the
pictures; and I'm glad to think they can do so. I wouldn