TOPICS of the DAY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 143, 18 June 1910, Page 11

TOPICS of the DAY.

(From O.iir Special Correspondent.) LONDON, May 6. May, June and July are the most interesting months in the London year. More things seem to happen then than in all the rest of the year. London renews its youth in the early summer, and plunges into a thousand new activities with a zest which would leave you breathless if you tried to keep pace ■with the foremost. It is a rush and a whir!, and yesterday's events are forgotten in the excitement of to-morrow. The opening of this year's summer season has been unusually brilliant, in spite of the weather, which is atrocious. Lon-1 don is enjoying j THE NOVELTY OF AN AVIATION j BOOM. I The wonderful aeroplane race to !Manchester has set the fashion for the season, and everyone talks aeroplanes now. Louis Paulhan, the winner of the " Daily Mail" £ 10,000 prize, had such a reception in London on Saturday as falls to the lot of few men. At the luncheon at the Savoy Hotel, where the French Ambassador presented him with the £ 10,000 cheque in a golden casket, men of mark in every profession assembled to do him honour, and when he and Grahame White drove to Charing Cross after the banquet their progress was a triumphal procession. The Strand was black witii cheering thousands. The young Frenchman, by nature modest and reserved, had a. curious, half-frightened look through it all, but lie was very happy, and his little wife looked radiant! There is no doubt that the English can be hospitable. "Damme! But you do things well in England," said Louis Pauilian, in one of his rare -bursts oE expansiveness. Coming from so reticent a man, it spoke volumes for the impression made on him by the surgiug welcome, the magnificent banquet, the mighty chorus of praise. He liked, too, the sporting spirit shown by the English in thus acclaiming a Frenchman, although he had beaten their own champion. " Ah," he said, " that is real sport." I have never known or heard of a race of any kind which created such, widespread excitement as that historic flight for the £ 10,000 prize. It interested people of -every rank and station in life, from King to crossing-sweeper. Hall England seems to have stayed out of bed all night on the night of the race. The whole country was on tip-toe with excitement. Same of the London morning papers published as many as seven editons during the night, and one of them, to my sold nearly 100,000 extra copies next day. And now the excitement is being kept alive by the i offer of another £ 10,000 by the " Daily Mail " to be divided between two groat flying contests—one in England and the other between Paris and London. Never lias a newspaper received better value for its money than the " Mail" has had for that first £10,000. It has been a magnificent, world-wide ;udvertisemient, and is in its way another striking tribute to the genius of Lord NorthelifTe, whose idea it was. Paulhan, by the way, does not retain the £10,000, I hear. He was under contract to his teacher, Farman, the designer of the machine, to ily on biplanes for a salary of «.£ SO a week, and five per cent of all prize money won. So the bulk of the £10,000 goes to Farman, the winner's share being 5 per cent, or £500. "LA MILO'S ACQUITTAL." After a trial extending over five days at the Old Bailey, Mrs. Pansy Eggena, who is better known to readers on both sides of the world a.s "La Milo," was last Monday acquitted of the charge of fraud levelled against her by a West End jeweller named Wood.

The charge was made three months ago, the' prosecutor alleging that "La Milo," with, er liusband, Ferdinand Eggena, and Percy Eastern, liad conspired

to obtain from him jewellery to the value of £C,2SO. The defendants were all committed for trial, but only Eggena was kept in durance vile, "La Milo" and Easton being admitted to bail, pending the opening of the Old Bailey sessions.

At the opening of the trial this week, Mr. Avory, who recapitulated the circumstances of the case at considerable length, said the man Eggena, who was a German, early last year made the acquaintance of the prosecutor. He asked him to supply certain jewellery, which he wanted to-show to his "aunt." In view of the prosecution, "La Milo" was the "aunt" spoken of. After negotiations, the jewellery, the subject of the charge, was selected by Eggena, the prosecutor agreeing to accept as security 25 motor-cars, worth ±"20,000, which were stored at premises in Euston-road, of which the prisoner Easton was one of the xna-naging directors. They were represented to belong to Eggena. Payment for the jewellery was to have been made in January last, but the money was not forthcoming, and upon Easton being applied to for the cars, he said he had given them to Eggena upon a properly signed order, which he had notified to the prosecutor. That, however, was denied.

•In February it was ascertained that the jewellery had been pledged. The case for the prosecution was that the whole of the representations made by the prisoners were false and merely a scheme to get possession of the jewellery. "La Milo," in the witness-box, was a picture of indignant innocence, and crossexamine her as he would prosecuting counsel could get nothing out of the lady which could be construed into an admission that she knew anything of the nature of her husband's dealings with either Mr. Wood or Easton. It became quite clear in the course of her evidence that she had known really nothing of Eggena's ■nefarious transactions, and like a loving and dutiful wife had never asked questions. That she was in any real sense a party to the frauds the jury did not believe, and after the judge had summed-up they at once acquitted her.

So also did they acquit Easton, against whom the judge suggested that there was no real case. He, like "La Milo," had been quite aware of the real nature of Eggena's transactions. Against Eggena a very strong case of fraud was made out, and it was proved in evidence that in pursuance of his schemes he had deliberately forged Easton's signature to a receipt which he had.shown Mr. Wood, in order to induce that gentleman to part with jewellery against the security of the 25 cars stored at Easton's establishment,

The judge took a lenient view of Eggena's offence, and, taking into consideration the fact that he had been in custody since February, let Em off with 21 months' hard labour.

One thing that particularly nettled "La Milo" was a suggestion made to the effect that Eggena was living on •her. This she indignantly repudiated, pointing out that through being a bankrupt himself, Eggena could not have a banking account, so the money supplied to him by his rich relations was placed to her account, and she gave it to him as he required it.

•La Milo," in the course of her ex-ami-nation made the interesting admission that she earned about £5,000 a year her weekly salary being anything from £100 to £200 a week. WANTED—A NEW WORD. What is the best word to describe a man who flies? So long as aeroplanes were in their experimental stage and nobody knew or talked much about them, it was sufficient to give the men who manipulated them a scientific sort of name, such as aviator. But flying has in the last week or two been the most-talked-of subject in England, and "aviaj tor" is found to be- far too clumsy and pretentious for a household word. "Wha/t is there to take its place? We need a I new word.

The newspapers wrestled manfully with the difficulty in their accounts ofthe great London-Manchester race, but their attempts to ring the changes on "aviator" were not very hopeful. "Flying man" suffers from lack of compactness, as also does "man-flyer." "Aeronaut" is not a word that the multitude take kindly to. The French use the term "oisseau-Lornme," or bird-man, as a synonym for aviator, but that does not seem very satisfactory either.

There has been some correspondence on the eubjectTn the papers this week, and perhaps the best suggestion that has been put forward is the word "airman," on the analogy of "landsman," "seaman," "countryman," "townsman," and many others. To the objection that "airman" does not distinguish between the men who fly in airships and ■who fly in aeroplanes, the reply is that neither does "seaman' , distinguish between those who go to sea in sailing ships and those who go in steamers.

Most new things begin with a long name, and end with a short one, the Anglo-Saxon tendency being to keep words short. "Wire" is gradually replacing "telegram" in everyday use, and in course of time will probably do so in books and newspapers. "Bike" is &till plebeian, but its day of triumph over "bicycle" may only be a matter of time. "Wireless" is already a noun, used to derote a wireless telegram, and "photo." is used far oftcner than ''photograph." Nobody talks nowadays o£ "pianoforte." So 'that if we call our flying men by a name which cannot be easily shortened for everyday use, the chances are that that name will not stick. For this reason "aviator" is a term which eeems doomed to extinction. LOTTIE COLLINS DEAD. Memories of one of 'the maddest arid most foolish songs that ever stirred the soul of the masses were recalled by the death in London last Sunday at the early age of 42 of the erstwhile popular music-hall artiste, Lot-tic Collins. Twenty years ago, at the London Pavilion, Lottie Collins, in a short frock of violent red silk and a foam of lace petticoat, leaped at once from mere metropolitan popularity into cosmopolitan fame as the singer of "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay." One says "singer," but really Mies Collins danced herself into fame, for the song was the silliest thing imaginable, and it was solely her mad dance to the refrain of "Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay" that captivated people's fancy. • Miss Collins' performance of this refrain was the wildest thing ever seen, and the orchestra's accompaniment the wildest thing ever heard. The clash of •the cymbals on the "Boom" would have made any well-regulated welkin ring for a month, Within a fortnight of Miss Collins' introduction of this song (an American ' product by the way) to the patrons of the Pavilion, London, had been bitten by the "Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay" tarantula, and every boy and man in the street had "got" it badly." ' There never had been anything like 'Ta-ra-ra-Boom-de-ay" before; there has never been anything like it since. Compared with it "Yip~-i-addy-i-ay" is a soothing "lullaby. "Ta-ra-ra" was a nerve-wracker. You couldn't get away from it in >to-.vn or country. It was "played on barrel organs and by every German band," by orchestrae and bands in public and private. You went to bed with "Boom-de-ay" ringing in your ears, the milkman deposited his can on your step to a whistled or hummed accompaniment of "Ta-ra-ra" in the early hotirs of morning, and your newspaper was delivered scon after to a shrill thieves-whistle version of the ear-haunting refrain of Lottie Collins' masterpiece.

After Miss Collins had been singing at the halls for nearly a year. Mr. Greorge Edwardes, who had then but recently taken up the G-aiety reins of manag"I ment, dropped by the late John HolI lingehcad, "specially engaged" her to inj troduce her "sensation" into one of his ! pieces, and "aid her the then unheard- ; of salary of £150 a week—a. sum all the more remarkable for the fact that it was not paid for the lady's exclusive services.

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