Our club is young and working under unusual circumstances. It is composed of Cubans and Americans. A cordial welcome and appreciative hearing would be given to any one willing to help us by speaking before the club.
We feel that all such courtesies not only strengthen the union between our countries but make for the better understanding and development of both.
Ione R. Van Gorden.
[Secretary Woman’s Club of Havana.]
SHOPPERS’ PUZZLE
In reading The Survey of March 29, I was interested in the Shoppers’ Puzzle on page 913. It certainly seems unfair to people employed all during the week in offices and factories to deprive them of their only opportunity to do their shopping Saturday afternoons. On the other hand while they are having their half holiday the clerks who wait on them are deprived of the half holiday so much needed during the hot summer months.
Would it not be possible, however, for the St. Louis Consumers’ League to arrange with the heads of the department stores to give the customary half holiday on some other day—say Thursday or Friday?
I was in England last June and there was a great deal of discussion in the papers over the enforcement of a law compelling a weekly half holiday in every line of business. In London business was suspended at 1 P. M. Saturday, but in Oxford we learned to our sorrow that the closing day was Thursday.
One of our party being in need of a dentist one Thursday afternoon we started out to find one about 2 o’clock. Not one was to be seen until 9:30 Friday morning, we were told. “The next best thing, we decided, would be to consult a druggist or “chemist,” but there again we were met with barred doors and drawn curtains. Finally appealing to a “bobby” we were directed to a shop where we could ring a night bell and get some attention. When we told the chemist that in America the drug stores were always open even when other places of business were closed he said that in England it was against the law. He also explained that the country towns in England had the half holiday during the week as Saturday was the country market day. In Winchester the closing day was Wednesday. This is offered as one answer, though there may be better ones for this modern industrial puzzle.
Jean Allison.