Spring-Cleaning

In the spring a housewife's fancy turns to thoughts of cleaning. Britain in the wake of war was as restless and ruthless as any of them. In her musty old attic many an outworn, heart-warming trinket of tradition was being dusted off, examined and discarded in the harsh light of accuracy and efficiency.

At London's Euston and King's Cross Stations, clocks which have long been set a few minutes fast, to give suburbanite season-ticket-holders (commuters) a margin of safety, were suddenly set right. Commented the approving Manchester Guardian: ". . .A time addict . . . must either go on increasing the dose by putting his watch still farther forward or admit that his existing ration no longer produces the desired effect."

In the House of Lords Britain's most revered document came up for examination. As the Lords voted to lend the Lacock Abbey copy of the Great Charter to the U.S., their eye fell on a yoo-odd-year-old mistake. "Hard on the plain man" (says Philologist H. W. Fowler) but dear to the heart of many a Briton is the age-old habit of spelling it "Magna Charta" and pronouncing it "Magna Karta." Last week the Lord Chancellor invited the Lords to drop the h. They did.

In another section of Parliament some Britons felt that spring-cleaning had gone too far. When Laborite T. C. Skeffington-Lodge quoted statements that 40% of Britain's dewy, young (under 20) brides were pregnant on their wedding day, the House of Commons could only shake its collective fatherly head. Conservative Novelist Beverley Baxter doubted the shocking estimate, warned: "If this is published without considerable repudiation, it will shock the people of the Dominions and the U.S."

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