SONG-RIDDEN LONDON

Fish

The Terrible Musical Enthusiasm of England's Non-combatants

ALL POSSIBILITY of sleep in London has been shattered during recent months by the voices of the multitude raised in patriotic song. Two ballads in particular have been shouted with such consistent fervor that the very kitchen utensils echo their choruses on being touched. Paul Rubens, the librettist, is responsible for one of these songs: "Your King and Country Want You." It is advertised as a woman's recruiting song.

If that means that it was designed to enlist women it is doing very well, but prospective soldiers are breaking records running away from it. At the theatres, music halls and at private entertainments (for the benefit of the refugees) it is invariably sung by the ripe soprano whose likeness has been caught in the three top pictures by our courageous artist.

THE second song, "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary, " has already made itself known on this side of the ocean. Its vogue in New York is mild in comparison with its popularity in London. Over there it is being chanted, as the pictures show, by everyone whose vocal chords have not yet cracked under the strain. The postmen and the policemen are wild about it. Society girls warble it at their mothers, and the mothers warble it to their husbands who in turn warble it while they sign cheques for charities. Barbers lather their victims to its irrepressible rhythm, babies use it in their waking (and other people's sleeping) hours and the bridal couples one-step to it up the aisle, instead of marching sadly to the tune of the wedding march.