climate. This is seen at its best during the autumn and winter
months. The climate of London and indeed of England generally is due
to the influence of the Gulf Stream. The way it works is thus: The
Gulf Stream, as it nears the shores of the British Isles and feels
the propinquity of Ireland, rises into the air, turns into soup, and
comes down on London. At times the soup is thin and is in fact little
more than a mist: at other times it has the consistency of a thick
Potage St. Germain. London people are a little sensitive on the point
and flatter their atmosphere by calling it a fog: but it is not: it
is soup. The notion that no sunlight ever gets through and that in
the London winter people never see the sun is of course a ridiculous
error, circulated no doubt by the jealousy of foreign nations. I have
myself seen the sun plainly visible in London, without the aid of
glasses, on a November day in broad daylight; and again one night
about four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the sun distinctly appear
through the clouds. The whole subject of daylight in the London
winter is, however, one which belongs rather to the technique of
astronomy than to a book of description. In practice daylight is but
little used. Electric lights are burned all the time in all houses,
buildings, railway stations and clubs. This practice which is now
universally observed is called Daylight Saving.

But the distinction between day and night during the London winter is
still quite obvious to any one of an observant mind. It is indicated
by various signs such as the striking of clocks, the tolling of
bells, the closing of saloons, and the raising of taxi rates. It is
much less easy to distinguish the technical approach of night in the
other cities of England that lie outside the confines, physical and
intellectual, of London and live in a continuous gloom. In such
places as the great manufacturing cities, Buggingham-under-Smoke, or