which has been
established to the satisfaction of the military authorities. One must
have a permit to live in them, even if they be one's home town. These
towns are vital to the war and its successful prosecution.

Until one has seen a British port of embarkation in this war one has
no real beginning, even, of a conception of the task the war has
imposed upon Britain. It was so with me, I know, and since then other
men have told me the same thing. There the army begins to pour into
the funnel, so to speak, that leads to France and the front. There
all sorts of lines are brought together, all sorts of scattered
activities come to a focus. There is incessant activity, day and
night.

It was from Folkestone, on the southeast coast, that the Reverend
Harry Lauder, M.P. Tour was to embark. And we reached Folkestone on
June 7, 1917.

Folkestone, in time of peace, was one of the greatest of the Southern
watering places. It is a lovely spot. Great hotels line the Leas, a
glorious promenade, along the top of chalk cliffs, that looks out
over the Channel. In the distance one fancies one may see the coast
of France, beyond the blue water.

There is green grass everywhere behind the beach. Folkestone has a
miniature harbor, that in time of peace gave shelter to the fishing
fleet and to the channel steamers that plied to and from Boulogne, in
France. The harbor is guarded by stone jetties. It has been greatly
enlarged now--so has all Folkestone, for that matter. But I am
remembering the town as it was in peace!

There was no pleasanter and kindlier resort along that coast. The
beach was wonderful, and all summer long it attracted bathers and
children at play. Bathing machines lined the beach, of course, within
the limits of the town; those queer, old, clumsy looking wagons, with
a dressing cabin on wheels, that were drawn up and down according to
the tide, so that bathers might enter the water from them directly.
There, as in most British towns, women bathed at one part of the
beach, men at the other, and all in the most decorous and modest of
costumes.

But at Folkestone, in the old days of peace, about a mile from the
town limits, there was another stretch of beach where all the gay
folk bathed--men and women together. And there the costumes were such
as might be seen at Deauville or Ostend, Etretat or Trouville. Highly
they scandalized the good folk of Folkestone, to be sure--but little
was said, and nothing was done, f