WANTED `‘,AN IDENTIFICATION ROOM."
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GLANCING THROUGH my correspondence at, the office the other morning, I noticed the following words in a letter :—" I will meet hied at Euston Station. I shall be -carrying an, envelope in my left hand. Please ask your representative to do the same, ..-tothat we shall know one another." In one form or another, a similar arrangement was made in quite a number of letters with regard to appoiritnuints and visits every week. ' We wrote to one concern and said that our representative would be wearing a light Burberry coat and would get out of a first-class carriage at London Road, Manchester. Some Clyde shipbuilders wrote to say that Mr. McPherson would be standing by the door of the Central Hotel, and so the office was temporarily transformed into an academy for marking out Mr. Smith from the camouflaging influence of ordinary life, so that he would be discoverable to the eyes of the waiting Scotsman.
It all arises out of the war. In the days before motoring restrictions eame'into force, business journeys were carried out by car, and it was easy to tell a stranger you were arranging to meet to look out for a I-kitty-coloured Sunbeam or a Singer coupe. Only in the ease of the Ford, perhaps, was it necessary to particularize and give the registration number. All that is now altered, and lengthy journeys in slow,trains consume our time and spoil our tempers. Owing to the changes in personnel caused by manpower demands, we meet more strangers than ever, and time being scarce wa are compelled to make appointments at railway stations and in other places where no opportunity occurs for formal introductions. Hence the necessity for the methods referred to above.
• I sent for Jones-, who was to go to Euston to meet the writer of the, letter which started me on this line of thought, and showed him the suggestion.
cd.0 " Hum," he said, ." an envelope this time. Last week it was a red rose, with an umbrella sloping over my shoulder like a rifle, and I was to look out for a man with elastic-sided boots and yellow gloves. What I want to know -is—when are they going to establish this identification room?"
"What room'?" I asked.
"The identification room. The ereatest need of the times. All it wants is a nice, large, cosy, comfortable room, like a cafe, at each of our big stations. There should be only one entrance past a commissionaire.
" As you went in you would pay a penny And write your name on a special card, which the commission
aim would drop into a card index. • •
"Sitting down, you read the paper, have a cup of coffee, and wait for your friend.
"He turns up and asks the commissionaire if Mr. Brownjones is there. Reference to the card index shows that you are, and, moreover, that you are expecting Mr. Rob insmith. The commissionaire comes to the door and says Mr. Robinsmith -to._ see Mn ,Brownjenes,' and you get up and shake hands. As you pass out the commissionaire rips up your card, and all is well. The penny from each one pays the expenses."
"Seems a good idea," said.
"It is more than that,' asserted Jones. "It is a necessity for soldiers meeting friends, for business men, for colonials, for our allies a-drift in big cities, and to stop respectable men like myself from .having to make asses of themaelves by going about waving envelopes." And he went off to the stationery stores.
WILLIAM N. HALLETT.