s with corridors, and
stairways, and halls and lounges with one universal gesture.

Not merely in so fine an hotel as the "Royal Alexandra," but in the
private houses and the "apartments" (English--"flats"), central heat
and good bathrooms are items of everyday--though many Canadians burn an
open fire in their sitting-rooms for the comfortable look it gives.

These things are not merely for comfort, but they are, with the
hardwood floors, the mail chutes in "apartment" houses and the rest,
part of the great science of labour-saving, which the whole of America
practises.

One realizes the need of labour-saving when one sees in a theatre
vestibule the following notice:

"ALL CHILDREN NOT LEFT WITH THE
MATRON MUST BE PAID FOR"

As nurses are rare, and servants are rare, the Americans have to
organize themselves to simplify the task of housekeeping.

The "apartments" are compact and neat, arranged for easy handling. The
rents are not cheap. One very pleasant little "apartment," "hired" by
a newly-married couple, was made up of three rooms, a kitchen and a
balcony. It was in the suburbs. The rent was thirty-five dollars a
month, say eighty-four pounds a year, for a flat, which, under the same
conditions (rates included) could be obtained for thirty-five pounds a
year in England in pre-war days. For this, however, central heating
and perpetual hot water are included. My friend told me that his
electric light bill came to three dollars a month, and his gas bill
(for cooking) to rather less than that. In Calgary a friend of mine
had a pretty "apartment" even smaller in a suburban district, was
paying about ninety-six pounds a year over all, _i.e._, rent, light and
gas (central heating being included). Most of these "apartments" have
an ice house (refrigerator) attached, blocks of ice being left on the
doorstep every morning, just as the milk is left.

Winnipeg is an attractive town to live in. It has plenty of
amusements, including several good theatres and music halls--fed, of
course, mainly from American sources. Mrs. Walker, whose husband owns
the Walker Theatre, told me that Laurence Irving and his wife acted on
their stage just before sailing on the ill-fated _Empress of Ireland_.
She went up to his dressing-room to say "Good-bye" to him, the night
before he left, and in answer to her knock he suddenly appeared before
her, dressed in black from head to foot, for the character he was
playing t