London, August 11.
was announced Inst) week that the King and Queen had just carried out their thousandth engagement, ingly or together. since the war egan—visits to training camps troops, war service centres, hospitals and the like. Surely it is @ noble record, especially when one remembers. the great quantity of State business which the King also has to transact and the number of people whom he must see, not counting the investitures of persons who have won de> the papers sent a reporter round the markets last week and he found that the prices of soft fruits—raspberries, red. currants ete—varied as much as from a shilling to three shillings between the market and the shop. Soft fruit is beyond the power of Lord Woolton to control, by the nature of the stuff. So the only remedy is not buy.
oilier directions. too, the shops are taking every opportunity to put prices. One orders soap flakes, 'OF one of the many breakfast cereals, corations, The only "let-up" which|to find on its arrival that the price the war has brought their Majesties has gone up 30 percent. or more that there are no courts or levees. from: that advertised. It is almost which must be the most boring fun tions after one has done them once—like' greyhound racing sway of a small relaxation the King and Queen and their daughters spent Sunday afternoon on the upper: Thames. They. are the first Sover-coigns to have done this since Edward VIE. They motored to Hambleden, he Tock at the lower end of the Her ley reach, and took a Thames Consetvaney launch, then cruised down by lovely Hurley, Marlow, Bourne End (the river is less interesting here, though it provides a grand reach for sailing), " Cookham, along the Clieveden woods, and so by Boulter's, Bray and Boveney to Windsor There are so many fascinations in all the Thames that It Is hard to. choose between them, but they certainly saw some of the most beautiful parts At the locks the river Local" Defence Force—or as they are now to he called, the Home Guard-—had their Taunehes drawn up to form a guard of honour. There are about 60 of these launches and" they spend the nights patrolling the upper Thames. Much pleasure has been given by the: reopening of the lower river as far as Richmond, But at sundown all boats have to be locked up and oars and sails taken away.
Guides, Scouts and Rovers of a Kiaochow Park recently—at least above group. In all 24 nations are represented of the Boy Scout and Country's Commissariat Now their Majesties have resumed the endless round' of inspections. Yesterday the Queen went toa fruit: preserving centre in Buckingham shire, run by women's institutes, where huge quantities of fruit have deen saved from rotting (the Idea seems Impossible in wartime, but such would have been the fate of the: fruit otherwise) and is being canned or made into jam, The Queen took. much interest in some of the old Buckinghamshire recipes" which the women's Institutes have recovered from oblivion, But as these all seem to require a heavy admixture of egos and cream, they can't be of mulch use to. us just now, There are indeed complaints of the price both of fruit and eggs: of the certainly old stock on which prices fre marked in anticipation of what may be, not of what is. But one can do nothing, though T believe that theoretically one may report suspect cases of profiteering to the Food Controller. No one does. In fee Thave often pointed out, thew has made very little difference in the general conveniences of life. Even shopmen must live, and the way some of their customers keep them waiting for thole money must. make, them weep tears of blood.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.