THEY DO THE SAME IN ENGLAND
33
the
morning the streets stream with fast-going, hard-peddled bicycles, dart–
ing in and out of heavy traffic. As for the eating problem, that too has
bern somewhat solved: the shop girls and clerks bring their lunches or,
if
they
go out to a tea-room to eat, eat very little. I have been in lunch–
rooms during the ·rush hour where the average order for a shop girl has
bern a cup of tea and a scone. And I have seen how hungrily they have
nibbled, trying to make the food last. Then, with a quick wipe of the
lips
with their handkerchiefs (for the English serve no napkins), they. get
up quickly, pay the check and hurry out, not tipping.
Many girls, I learned from my dancing partner, come from the "d -
pressed" areas of the North, where conditions, judged even by American
southern mill-town standards, are appalling. These northern villages and
cities-industrial centers-have come under the hatchet of the Japanese
underselling spurt which has robbed England of many of her far eastern
markets. The girls' fathers,
mo~t
of them, are on the dole, and the
daughters are sent to London for employment. Many of them, of course,
land upo,n the streets. Fully half of the girls who have stopped me late at
night along Tottenham Court Road I found spoke with a North country
dialect. Of course, along Picadilly, where things are swankier, you get a
pseudo-Mayfair or a brittle
c~ckney
accent.
"Well, where do the type of young men who are dancing here tonight
take girls, if they have no money?" I inquired.
My partne!' gave me a quick look, then said briefly: "To Hamp–
stead Heath." She did not know it, but her eyes were bitter. And again
I
understood. Hampstead Heath at night, if the weather is not down–
right frosty, swarms with young couples who stretch themselves upon the
chilly ground. In the summer, of course, it is a lovers' paradise. It is
not under London County Council supervision and has no policemen, no
regulated hours. It is a huge wild place, with trees, bushes and hills and
dales, right i1'1 the heart of the city.
"\Veil, that's the way she lives," I told my1elf. "She comes from
IOIIJe depressed northern mining or industrial town, is thrilled by the city
at first, gets a job with a five-and-ten-cent chain, lives in a dark room
without heat or running water, and learns to curb her appetite and get
along on starvation wages. And perhaps, in time, she gets into
trouble ..."
At the end of the number my Gem1an girl friend came over and
tapped me on the shoulder. I introduced her to my new friend. We talked
awhile, somewhat stiffly, then separated, and my recent partner smiled
pensively as my companion and I moved off. My German girl friend, when
we· were at a distance, spoke: "Now you ask
me
questions, I saw you
pestering her long enough."
