That quaint idea of Sir Edward Clarke’s that, as a revenue expedient in time of war, we should impose a tax on those who have names as well as numbers on their garden gates has a principle in it which is capable of wide extension.  It is the principle of taxing us on our vanities.  I am not suggesting that there is not also a practical point in Sir Edward’s idea.  There is no doubt that this custom of giving our houses names is the source of much unnecessary labour and irritation to other people—­postmen, tradesmen, debt collectors, and errand boys.  Mr. Smythe—­formerly Smith—­of 236, Belinda Avenue, is easily discoverable, but what are you to do about Mr. Smythe, of Chatsworth House, Belinda Avenue, on a dark night?  How are you to find him?  There are 350 houses in Belinda Avenue, all as like as two peas, and though Mr. Smythe has a number, he never admits it.  Chatsworth House is where he lives, and if you want him it’s Chatsworth House that you have to find.

The other night a friend of mine was called to the door at a late hour.  It was dark and raining and dismal.  At the door stood a coal-heaver.  “Please, sir,” he said, “can you tell me where Balmoral is?  I’ve got a load of coal to take there, and I’ve been up and down this road in the dark twice, and can’t make out where it is.”  “It’s the fourth house from here to the right,” said my friend, and the coal-heaver thanked him and went away.  That illustrates the practical case for a tax on house names.

But it was not that case which was in Sir Edward’s mind.  His view is that we ought to pay for the innocent vanity of living at Chatsworth House instead of 236, Belinda Avenue.  Now if that principle is carried into effect, I see no end to its operation.  I am not sure that Sir Edward himself would escape.  I have often admired his magnificent side-whiskers.  I doubt whether there is a pair of side-whiskers to match them in London.  That he is proud of them goes without saying.  Nobody could possibly have whiskers like them without feeling proud of them.  I feel that if I had such whiskers I should never be away from the looking-glass.  And consider the pleasurable employment they give in idle moments.  Satan, it is said, has mischief still for idle hands to do.  But no one with such streamers as Sir Edward’s can ever have idle hands.  When you have nothing else to do with them you stroke your whiskers and purr.  Certainly they are worth paying for.  I think they would be dirt cheap at a tax of L1 a side.

And then there are white spats.  I don’t know how you regard white spats, but I never see them without feeling that something ought to be done about it.  I daresay the people who wear them are quite nice people, but I think they ought to suffer in some way for the jolt they give to the sensibilities of humbler mortals who could no more wear white spats than they could stand on their head in the middle of Fleet Street.  I am aware that white spats are often only a sort of business advertisement.