THE REFRESHING FRUIT 



sixpence a week upon the hard-working mother of a large 

 family, who occasionally comes in " to oblige " at Villino 

 Loki / and when she remonstrated he humorously remarked 

 that Mr. Lloyd George was " driving him to it ! " 

 There is a proverb that " good wine needs no bush/'' The 

 Chancellor's efforts to convince his victims of the comfort 

 of the plaster which is blistering them are almost pathetic. 

 But surely it is another proof, if one were needed, of the 

 weakness of his cause. A local laundry owner has been 

 receiving six pounds a week, lecturing, in Devonshire of 

 all places, on the blessedness of the Act as experienced by 

 himself and staff. One of our district nurses, a delightful 

 sturdy North Country woman, was " approached " as to 

 whether she would undertake, for a consideration, to use 

 her persuasiveness with her patients and make them see 

 how much they were benefited by the stamp tax. She 

 declined with a heat that may have astonished the emis- 

 sary. 



It must indeed be a little difficult to make, say, a struggling 

 greengrocer understand the debt of gratitude he owes to 

 the law which constrains him to pay fourpence a week for 

 the assistant he can so ill afford as it is and mulct that discon- 

 tented youth of threepence ! More especially when baker 

 and grocer charge him more to cover their own losses. 

 The obvious remedy, says Mr. Lloyd George, is for the 

 greengrocer to raise the prices in his town ! He does / and 

 somehow it doesn't work. Being in a poor district and all 

 his patrons being poor, they buy less from him, and he 

 buys less from them. 



" But look at the comfort in sickness ! " It is tiresome, it 

 almost seems like putting bad will into it, that the green- 



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