Bull was under no necessity of
stinting himself. Save for wheat and sugar; he is not in want.
Everywhere in London you are confronted by signs of an incomprehensible
prosperity; everywhere, indeed, in Great Britain. There can be no doubt
about that of the wage-earners--nothing like it has ever been seen
before. One sure sign of this is the phenomenal sale of pianos to
households whose occupants had never dreamed of such luxuries. And
not once, but many times, have I read in the newspapers of workingmen's
families of four or five which are gaining collectively more than five
hundred pounds a year. The economic and social significance of this
tendency, the new attitude of the working classes, the ferment it is
causing need not be dwelt upon here. That England will be a changed
England is unquestionable.

The London theatres are full, the "movies" crowded, and you have to wait
your turn for a seat at a restaurant. Bond Street and Piccadilly are
doing a thriving business--never so thriving, you are told, and presently
you are willing to believe it. The vendor beggars, so familiar a sight a
few years ago, have all but disappeared, and you may walk from Waterloo
Station to the Haymarket without so much as meeting a needy soul anxious
to carry your bag. Taxicabs are in great demand. And one odd result of
the scarcity of what the English are pleased to call "petrol," by which
they mean gasoline, is the reappearance of that respectable, but almost
obsolete animal, the family carriage-horse; of that equally obsolete
vehicle, the victoria. The men on the box are invariably in black.
In spite of taxes to make the hair of an American turn grey, in spite
of lavish charities, the wealthy classes still seem wealthy--if the
expression may be allowed. That they are not so wealthy as they were
goes without saying. In the country houses of the old aristocracy the
most rigid economy prevails. There are new fortunes, undoubtedly,
munitions and war fortunes made before certain measures were taken to
control profits; and some establishments, including a few supported by
American accumulations, still exhibit the number of men servants and
amount of gold plate formerly thought adequate. But in most of these
great houses maids have replaced the butlers and footmen; mansions have
been given over for hospitals; gardeners are fighting in the trenches,
and courts and drives of country places are often overgrown with grass
and weeds.