Across the Street

Halifax is a salt-rimed sailor's town, dependent on the sea for its livelihood, on war for boom prosperity. But Halifax also has a Calvinist moral attitude; Haligonians still squirm when historians recall that Queen Victoria's father flaunted his pretty mistress, Julie, in the face of Halifax society.

As hospitable as the ancient Scots and Britons they spring from, most Haligonians are proud of their Ajax Club. In 14 months 250,000 ratings, in from the North Atlantic, have found warmth, comradeship, books to read, cheap beer. Mrs. C. Stuart McEuen, club president, and other lady volunteer workers have proudly exhibited plaques presented by ships of the British and Canadian Navies in appreciation of her snug harbor. But across the street is the Fort Massey United Church, and last week the church made trouble. The Ajax Club found that it could not renew its license to sell beer.

Wild as the winds on Scotland's Ben Cruachan, red-haired Mrs. McEuen charged that seamen were being driven from her club's pleasant premises to the dismal bootleg joints on the Halifax waterfront.

"God knows how few of us civilians will ever realize how much you are doing for us and how much we owe you," Mrs. McEuen told her sailors. "God bless you --and give us strength to carry on the fight for the glass of beer for the sailor in surroundings worthy of you."

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