I'm glad to [OOI]| say I am continuing in my usual good health, and [OOI]| am putting in my time with the Sailors' Union. We [OOI]| had an executive meeting yesterday at Poplar, and [OOI]| tomorrow begins the annual meeting of delegates [OOI]| at Caxton Hall, Westminster. The union keeps up [OOI]| well: there is an actual financial membership of [OOI]| 70,000 members.
Do you remember that I [OOI]| started a Union in 1898? You are hardly likely to [OOI]| have known of it. It is called the Workers' [OOI]| Union, and it has now 160,000 members, but I have [OOI]| very little connection with it. C. Duncan, M.P. [OOI]| for Barrow, is sec., but it has proved to be the [OOI]| right thing.
We have more actual evidence [OOI]| of the war since the Zeppelin raids became [OOI]| common. I was up here three weeks ago, and went [OOI]| to Leytonstone (Walthamstowe) to see the effect [OOI]| of the raid of a few days previous. In one row 17 [OOI]| houses had all windows blown out, and the middle [OOI]| house of this lot, where the bomb fell, was a [OOI]| rubbish heap. I saw the holes where the bombs [OOI]| dropped in the yard of the Almshouse, and part of [OOI]| the house destroyed. Several were killed. Near to [OOI]| this six shops had fronts and windows out: five [OOI]| of these had been used by the Board of Trade as a [OOI]| Labor Exchange. A garage adjacent was gutted, and [OOI]| a church knocked about. Some weeks before several [OOI]| visits by Zeppelins were paid to Southend, and [OOI]| one family decided to move for safety to London, [OOI]| and went to Walthamstowe; in less than a week [OOI]| after the raid previously mentioned took place, [OOI]| and the family referred to were killed.
At [OOI]| this place I am staying at, the last raid touched [OOI]| them up. I am within two minutes of Ludgate [OOI]| Circus. From the door of this house the Zeppelin [OOI]| was seen, with many searchlights full on, and [OOI]| continuous firing kept up, and shrapnel falling [OOI]| from the anti-aircraft guns, none of which [OOI]| reached the Zeppelin. This dropped bombs at [OOI]| Leather Lane, Holborn; in Russell Square, [OOI]| Bloomsbury; on Liverpool St. and Broad St. [OOI]| Stations. At the same time, another Zeppelin was [OOI]| dropping bombs at Golder's Green, Highgate way, [OOI]| and another at Finsbury Park. In Wood St., [OOI]| Cheapside, a great conflagration followed. I am [OOI]| going to see the result when I finish this [OOI]| letter. The gun firing was heard over the greater [OOI]| part of London. Friends of mine who had retired [OOI]| to bed at South Ealing, seven miles west of [OOI]| Charing Cross, heard the guns, and got up and [OOI]| watched the shooting. My daughter Effie was [OOI]| playing in the All Scotch Revue at the Apollo [OOI]| Theatre, two minutes from Piccadilly Circus, and [OOI]| the firing was heard distinctly. Indications of [OOI]| panic seized the audience, but the artistes kept [OOI]| to their work, and the audience calmed down. [OOI]| Pretty trying for the stage work, eh? Another of [OOI]| my girls is married to a teacher; he joined the [OOI]| Army a year ago, and is in France; not hurt yet. [OOI]| Five other relatives I have at the Front; have no [OOI]| news of them beyond one of them being taken a [OOI]| prisoner, of course by the Germans. Our boy Tom [OOI]| is working at a technical chemist's, learning the [OOI]| biz. Bob is at a paper office in Manchester. Of [OOI]| course, the two Australians, Charlie and Elsie, [OOI]| are at school, and getting on very well.