Thad not realized how widely the old fashion of tending Valentines has ome back nil the day before St Vatentine's, T'went into a stationer's thob in Chancery Lane, the heart of the toget world not usually given love itera, 'The counter was throng with city clerks buying Valentine Cards all adorned with hearts, lace Sages and the soupiest dedications. There were large' boxes of these tributes "and they were emptying: fapldly. So evidently our mal dent fre arowing more sentimental." (Has it ever occurred to you that men are the really sentimental 20x?) "A. few Years ago a girl receiving a Valenting ould have' sent it beck with an Ineeription inviting the swain Yo Indeed spring is in the als.
The period between chrysanthemums and daffodils when flowers fare ruinous is being ended by the flower specials which the Great Western Railway runs to bring violets, daffodils and narcissi from the Scillies and Channel Isles. These islands have cut deeply into the former con tinental flower trade. Last year the Great Western brought over 5,000 tons of lowers to London, which was 1,300 more than the year before. Soon we shall be getting the big supplies from Lincolnshire and Cambridges hire, besides driblets from other countries. It would be inter~ esting to know how much London spends on flowers ina year. New York perhaps beats it, relatively to its size If not actually, but no continental city, Foreign housewives are too thrifty for such extravagance. But for the Anglo-Saxon flowers are 'a necessity. It is the surviving streak in his nature from those first ancestors who hated and distrusted towns.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.