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All the clubs are proud of their history and carefully guard their traditions. Applicants for membership are carefully considered.

The London clubs move with the times. About one hundred years ago, clubs were regarded to be only male territory. The principle of introducing lady members began early in this century in some clubs. Now nearly all the clubs are open for both men and women.

After the last war it was said that the London clubs were in decline from which they would never recover. Damaged buildings, lack of new

T H E A T R E S IN E N G L A N D

The centre of theatrical activity is London, where it is concentrated mainly in London's West End. Theatres are very much the same in London as anywhere else. If you are staying in London for a few days, you will have no difficulty in finding somewhere to spend an evening. You will find opera, comedy, dramas, musical comedy, variety. The performances start at about eight and finish at about eleven. Seats are expensive and a night out at a theatre1 is quite a luxury for the average Londoners. Most theatres and musical halls have good orchestras, with popular conductors.

Theatre organization in England differs greatly from that in Russia. Only- a few theatres have their own permanent companies. Troups are formed for a season, sometimes even for a single play.

stands not far away from one of the most famous of London streets, the Strand, and you ought to go there at least once during the season if you can.

The fine building of the Opera House, as you see it today, was opened in 1858. Yet its "father" and "grandfather" that were burnt down (in 1808 and 1856) stood on this very place before. The inside of the Opera House is in the shape of a horseshoe. There are seats for 2,320 persons.

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Now Covent Garden is one of the few well-known opera houses open for eleven months of the year and it employs over 600 people both

first-rate orchestra, famous conductors and singers. But of course if you are not fond of music, this won't interest you.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre

(The Shakespeare Memorial Theatre)

Stratford is only a small country town, standing on the banks of the peaceful Avon. This river runs slowly past the green meadows, never hurrying.

April 23rd, Shakespeare's birthday, is the greatest day in the year at Stratford. On this day in 1879, the first Memorial Theatre was opened

The present Shakespeare Memorial Theatre, an excellent modem building of red brick, was opened in 1932.

rant.

The whole season the Theatre gives only Shakespeare's plays. It is a great pleasure to see here Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Hamlet and many others.

MUSEUMS

The British Museum

There are many museums in London. One of the most famous is the British Museum. Built in the middle of the last century, it is situated in Bloomsbury, a district in central London. It is an immense, light-grey building, like a Greek temple.

For a long time it was a great library, one of the largest in the world, with something like 5 or 6 million books. By law a copy of every book, pamphlet, periodical, including maps and music published in Britain, are to be kept at the British Museum.

During the Second World War, the library was badly damaged, over 150,000 volumes perished in flames caused by Nazi bombs.

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Besides, the British Museum is a great scientific institution, generally known as Natural History Museum.

Lastly, the British Museum has a wonderful art gallery. It has unique collections of sculpture, ceramics, drawings, and paintings of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese, Indians, and many other peoples.

It has unique collections of Italian drawings (Leonardo da Vinci),

study in the world, with unique prehistoric collections. We could go on2

If you stand today in Trafalgar Square with your back to the Nelson Column you will see a wide horizontal front in a classical style: the Na-

ment suggested this collection to be bought for the Nation and a special gallery for it to be built near the British Museum. But this suggestion found no support in the House of Commons and the wonderful pictures were brought to Russia. They are in the Gallery of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. Now one can admire a great number of pictures by great British painters Hogarth, Constable, Turner, the portraits by Gainsborough, Reynolds who became famous the world over as well as the world's greatest masters — Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt, Holbein, Goya and many others. All great schools of painting are represented here: Italian, Spanish, etc.

ENGLISH PEOPLE AS THEY ARE

One of the most striking features of English life is the self-discipline and courtesy of people of all classes. There is little noisy behaviour, and practically no loud disputing in the street. People do not rush excitedly

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you," "I'm sorry," "Beg your pardon." If you follow anyone who is entering a building or a room, he will hold a door open for you. Many foreigners have commented on the remarkable politeness of the English people.

ners, dress and speech. Sometimes he conceals his knowledge: a linguist, for example, may not mention his understanding of a foreign language.

The Englishman prefers his own house to an apartment in a block of flats, because he doesn't wish his doing to be overlooked by his neighbours. "An Englishman's house is his castle."

Many Englishmen are very good to their wives at home. They help their wives in many ways. They clean the windows when they are at home on Saturday afternoon. They often wash up the dishes after supper in the evening.

The devotion of the English to animals is a well-known tradition. Animals are protected by law. If, for instance, any one leaves a cat or a

and people like to go down to the sea in summer or somewhere to the country for skiing in winter.

ON SNOBBERY

Snobbery is not so common in England today as it was at the beginning of the century. It still exists, however, and advertisers know how to use it in order to sell their goods.

A snob, the dictionaries tell us, is a person who pays too much respect to social position or wealth. The popular newspapers know that many of their readers are snobs. That is why they give them unimportant and useless information about persons of high social position, photo-

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graphs of "Lady X and her friends" at a ball or "Lord Y and his friends" at the races.

It is a snobbery that makes some men feel annoyed1 when, on the envelopes of letters addressed to them, they find Mr. before their names instead of Esq.2 after their names. Snobbery explains why many people give their suburban house a name, such as The Oaks, The Pines, The Cedars, even though there are no oak trees, pine trees or cedar trees in their gardens. People of high social position have country houses with names, so a house with a name seems "better" than a house with a number. Numbers make the postman's work much easier, but that is not important.

The advertisers are very clever in their use of snobbery. Motor-car manufacturers, for example, advertise the colours of their cars as "Embassy Black", though this is ordinary black, or "Balmoral Stone". Bal-

2.Esq. сокр. от esquire — эсквайр (дворянское звание, присваивается также мэрам и старшему чиновничеству)

DRIVING CARS

It. is about the same to drive a car in England as anywhere else. To change a punctured tyre in the wind and rain gives about the same pleasure outside London as outside Rio de Janeiro; it is not more fun to try to start up a cold motor with the handle in Moscow than in Manchester; the roughly 50-50 proportion1 between driving an average car and pushing it is the same in Sydney and Edinburgh.

There are, however, a few characteristics which distinguish the English motorists from the continental, and some points which the English

reckless driving is directed extremely skilfully and carefully according to

(b) three uniformed policemen sit in it; and

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(с) on their cars you can read the word POLICE written in large letters in front and rear, lit up during the hours of darkness.

(2) I think England is the only country in the world where you can have to leave your lights on even if you park in a brilliantly lit-up street. The advantage being that4 your battery gets exhausted, you cannot start up again and consequently the number of road accidents are greatly

Whenever you stop your car in the City, the West End or many other places, two or three policemen rush at you and tell you that you must not park there. Where may you park? They shrug their shoulders. There are a couple of spots in the South Coast and in a village called Ninchinhampton. Three cars may park there for half an hour every other Sunday morning5 between 7 and 8 a.m.

The police are perfectly right. After all, cars have been built to run,

Richmond on beautiful, sunny days, pull up all their windows and go to sleep. They do not get a spot of air, they are miserably uncomfortable, they have nightmares, and the whole procedure is called "spending a

come there on board a ship, it will get you into harbour at Dover, or Harwich or any other port. Or you may come there by airliner that is also to fly you to London.

The guide who will show you around the city will tell you at least a few things about the history of England and London in particular. He or she will tell you about the two great misfortunes that befell England in

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the 17th century, the Plague (1665) which killed nearly 100,000 people, that is about 1/5 of the population and the Great Fire (1666) just a year later when 3,000 houses and nearly all churches were destroyed in the flames. The fire was very important for modem London, it cleared away

one or two houses but whole districts were destroyed and how after the raids people used to come out of their shelters and put little flags on the heaps of ruins: "Bombed but not Beaten!"

You will be shown lots of historical monuments, places of interest, wonderful parks, museums which you will admire. You may be taken to Cambridge or Oxford as well. You will see the Beautiful, the Wonderful, the Most Interesting in London and its suburbs.

But if you are inquisitive enough you won't be satisfied until you see the people's London. If you take the Hampstead bus from Victoria Station, it will take you forty minutes to get to the end of the bus line. This trip on the deck would show you that London is dirty and ugly, as well as beautiful, dull and monotonous as well as wonderful and quite

in Kensington Gardens and you will watch pieces of empty grounds with

market and watch an artist who paints in coloured chalks right on the pavement. Beside the picture there is a hat and the words "Ladies and Gentlemen! A penny is enough. Thank you kindly."

—palaces and slums,

—beauty and ugliness,

—rich and poor, most elegant and most shabby,

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— old traditions and ceremonies and modern strikes of workers, цц. employed, war veterans and intellectuals.

Then you will say: "Indeed, London is the city of contrasts."

tor. He had to be on duty from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.1 and give a signal every hour to prove that he did not sleep. The signals were made with astonishing exactness. One night an inspector arrived and saw Edison sleeping in a chair.

He was about2 to shake him when he caught sight3 of a mechanism on a table near the telegraph instrument. He waited to see what would happen. When the hand of the clock pointed to the hour, the instrument got busy4 and one lever threw open the key while the other sent the signal over the wire.

The inspector seized the sleeping boy, roused him and "fired"5 him. That is why the first of Edison's numerous inventions was never patented.

1. p.m. — после полудня, днем, вечером; a.m. — до полудня, утром

2.was about — собирался, намеревался

3.to catch sight — увидеть

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strength to open it. I cannot understand the reason. You are such a bril-

W.K. Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays, received a letter from a man. The man asked to send him "several X-rays with instructions how to use them". He explained that he had been shot in the chest and the bullet still remained there. "I should like very much3 to go to you myself but unfortunately I have no time."

The scientist replied: "I am very sony but we have no X-rays now. And besides, it is very difficult to send them by post. But there is a

After their discovery of radium and polonium Marie and Pierre Curie visited London. They were invited to a banquet organized in their honour by some very rich people. Marie looked at the ornaments of the

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ladies with great admiration. Suddenly, to her surprise, she saw that her

Once Professor Thomson (Lord Kelvin) was unable to stay for the class, so he placed a sign on the door which read as follows: "Professor Thomson will be unable to meet his classes1 today."

3.lass — девушка; ass — осел

4.to proceed on one's way — продолжать свой путь

Science and Imagination

Once David Gilbert (1862-1943) was asked about one of his former students.

"Oh, this one?" remembered Gilbert. "He has become a poet. He had too little imagination for mathematics."

Problems of Cosmic and Cosmetic Physics

Lise Meitner (1878-1968) was the first woman-physicist in Germany. The title of her dissertation "Problems of Cosmic Physics" seemed absurd to one of the journalists. In his article about Lise Meitner which he published in a newspaper he "corrected" the title of her dissertation and wrote "Problems of Cosmetic Physics".

Mr. Planck Was Not Convinced

Max Planck (1858-1947), the outstanding German physicist, was one of the founders of quantum theory. Once, when he was still young, he

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