and keeping all half-worn articles, the whole boiled down into the unpalatable region of stiffening the upper lip and to do without." England will not be the gainer if a similar family in the future is limited to one, or entirely disappears.
In another case relief is obtained by the husband "giving up half his smokes; by walks to the beginnings of the penny stage on the tramway; by selling any old article, carpet, oilcloth or furniture not wanted." "Our initial capital was therefore," says another somewhat sadly, "money, household goods and clothing, energy. Money was spent long ago on necessities and a few labour-saving devices; we cannot draw on the second any longer, as repairs and renewals are insistent; and the balance of the energy is waning. What of the future?"
Many of these seemingly well-dressed appear but as whitened sepulchres. "Artifice," confesses that the wearing of boots instead of shoes hides over-darned socks; donning two waistcoats does away with undervests; old stocking legs with the feet cut off deputise for pants. In Europe professors and scientists of world-wide reputation stalk through the streets of once brilliant capitals clothed in aged green frock-coats and trousers, with nothing beneath but an eating hunger. Practically on the whole of the Continent, east of the Rhine, caught between the profiteer and the demand of manual labour, the intellegenzia have been crushed to the wall. Only in Soviet Russia has any attempt been made to keep them alive. In England the process has been slower, but none the less sure.
"I reduced the number of meals," said 'Bonallie,' "and at first missing a customary meal induces a sharp craving; but from the beginning I noticed a distinct increase of comfort an hour or two later." "Eating meat once instead of four times a day improved digestion." So we learn the lesson of doing without, and in doing so mount to the stars. Our science, our education, our teaching of learning and piety is henceforth to be conducted under buoyant economies.
Labour savers, merciless elimination of all superfluities
