As these changes take place, the value of many old indications of class change also. Accent remains one of the easiest methods for placing a Briton, but it is no longer an infallible guide. The effect of the BBC upon British speech has been considerable, and today the clerk in an obscure provincial shop may talk, if not in the accents of Eton, at least in a pleasant voice that reveals only a trace of provincial accent. The disappearance of old robust provincial accents would be a loss. And an acute ear in London can still, like Shaw's Professor Henry Higgins, place a Londoner in Wimbledon or Barnes or Stepney. It is the conviction of many Socialists that equality will never reign in Britain until there is a universal accent. Clothes, too, are a much more accurate indication of class in Britain than in the United States. The derby or bowler is the almost universal headgear of the upper-class male in the city, with the cap for the country. The workingman affects a soft hat, sometimes a Homburg and often a cloth cap. The mass production of clothing came later in Britain than in the United States, but today the miner can be as warmly clothed as the banker. The difference lies in the styling given the banker's clothes by his London tailor. Then, too, the banker may be far more negligent in his dress than the miner: it is a mistake, if not a crime, in Britain for a member of the upper class to be too well dressed. Nancy Mitford and Professor Alan Ross have made Americans aware of the infinite variations of U (upper-class) and Non-U (non-upper-class) phraseology in Britain, but many of the distinctions so carefully drawn are changing. A young lady of my acquaintance habitually uses "serviette" instead of "napkin," a crime Miss Mitford ranks just below arson and beating an old woman with a stick. As she goes to an expensive and very U school, the young lady was queried about her choice of words. No one, she reported, had ever heard of Miss Mitford at her school, and what did it matter anyhow? There has been no mention of the aristocracy in this long chapter, which will probably offend readers whose views on Britain have been formed by the Merrie England school of writing. The fact is that the aristocracy does not rate a great deal of space in a book dealing with modern Britain. The real aristocracy of Britain was composed of the great landowning families whose power began to decline with the rise, at the start of the nineteenth century, of the great industrial and commercial families. The remaining British servants of the old school--the best judges extant of who is and who is not an aristocrat--are inclined to look down their noses at the pretensions of Johnny-come-latelies who earned their titles by services, usually financial, to political parties, or by the proprietorship of chain stores. To them the people who count are the old families and the old names--Derby, Norfolk, Salisbury.