Edinburgh, May 26.
"Club talk, when it is in a good club, is good talk." And always club talk fairly reflects the class from which its membership is re-emited. At the present time, what does club talk tell us about the great question of the cost of living and the pressing problem of ways and means?
Take one club asa sample. We are professors, men of science. writers, painters and sculptors, lawyers, doctors, and Civil Servants. Among us we number many of the active intelligenzia, to use one of the cant words of the hour. A deep shade of pessimism darkens our opinions. For this generation, at least, we know that our day is done; we are made to realize that we are numbered among the New Poor. We should not be so greatly distressed if we could accept the official figures which declare that the cost of living has increased since 1914 by only 146 per cent. We know that these figures take no count of income-tax, and no account of education, and pay little if any regard to all those small comforts which have ceased to be luxuries in a decent civilized life. If these costs be allowed for, the profes sional income of to-day must be divided by more than three to represent the net purchasing power of our earnings before the war. We cannot even take to drink to alleviate our sorrows—it is too expensive.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.