"ALL FOR NOTHING."

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 85, 11 April 1931, Page 13

"ALL FOR NOTHING."

OPENING THE FRENCH PURSE. AN UP-TO-THE-MINUTE AUTHOR. U BERLIN'S FLIRTATION FORMS. (Froin Our Special Correspondent.) PARIS, February '24. "Everything for Nothing" says a huge card in one shop window here, and even the most hardened bargain-hunter pauses, either in amazement, embarrassment, compunction or sheer sceptism. The "Sacrifices Formidables" are legion and universal, and even these touch the tender heart of the purchaser, unless, of course, he happens to be a hundred per cent Parisian, in which case it is the evidence that needs to be "formidable" to convince him that a shirt or a pair of socks is being offered to him for a franc less than its original price. Your true Parisian is never more hardboiled than at sale time. You must be subtle "if you would win his attention and even begin to interest him, and to this end you need neither give him something for nothing nor spend a vast sum of money. The town of Nimes knows well that it is possible to appeal to French opinion without great expense, and in ways which would riot perhaps occur to the British or American advertising manager. Indeed, it is now getting splendid advertisement at a cost of no more than f-iO.

The French equivalent of this sum certainly sounds more —5000 francs —and this Nimes is offering to the author of a novel of which Nimes shall be the subject. The prize is to be awarded for literary merit alone, and the judges are to be literary men. This has ensured a prominent place for the competition in every newspaper in France, and the publicity thus obtained by the town is considerable already. It will be far greater if the winning novel is a popular success. A Best Seller Aspirant. Books are not selling as well as they did, in spite of the real "sacrifice" that is made by French publishers. On the 50 cents for which a French novel sells, the publisher gives a discount of 3.7, or one-third, to the bookseller, and pays the cost of delivering the books to him. Moreover, the French bookseller never buys his copies outright. He can return any or even all of them. But the enterprise toward their sale is. great and multifarious. I have told you of the soirees where the author attends and signs all copies purchased, and of the bookseller who guaranteed to stock his window wilh books that would make the reader laugh. Bookshops exhibit side by side in their windows sheets of manuscript and a photo, of the author, and the most striking scenes from books have even been portrayed in tableaux vivant at fashionable restaurants. And now a French novelist has announced his intention of publishing one book a month; passages from his novels are to be broadcast, others are to be filmed, and picture postcards of his heroes and heroines will be on sale. This aspiring best seller may be over-confident of his fecundity, but Alexandre Dumas won a wager and fulfilled a contract by writing "Chevalier de Maison Rouge" in 36 hours, and Dr. Johnson turned out "Rasselas" in a week in order to meet his mother's funeral expenses. Edgar Wallace is still very much with us, and the late Nat Gould left over 300 volumes. Anyway, the enterprising booksellers arc sure to "feature" this gentleman well, and the postcards of the ladies and gentlemen of his fertile imagination are the sort of thing to make a new appeal and set a new vogue.

New Club at Monte Carlo. The coast road between Cannes and St. Raphael is golden with downy plumes of mimosa, dipping and nodding in the sunny winds and diffusing its delicate perfume. Sir John and Lady Ward have come out to their lovely villa,. Rosemary, at Cap Ferrat. Sir John, who is a brother of Lord Dudley, spends a lot of time in his garden by the blue Mediterranean. This seems, to be his favourite, though, with his several residences, -he has other gardens. He has a place in Berkshire, a shooting lodge in Scotland, and Dudley House in Park Lane. Lady Ward is one of the rich daughters of the United States.. The new . Sporting Club at Monte Carlo is coming along and will be opened next season. In the meanwhile they have opened a very sumptuous casino on the rocks facing the present Sporting Club. It lias cost about 1-30,000 dollars to build, and runs a variety show with pictures. The Alfred Jackson girls have been a popular "turn" there recently. Buses and everything ai-e coming into line with the general reduction in prices. The motor buses which ply between Monte and Nice will now take you there and back for seven francs, instead of the fifteens and tAventies they used to charge. Nice has shed her old trams altogether, but not Mentone. Fleet In at Malta.

In the brief respite between spring cruises Malta has been very busy enter : taining the Fleet in harbour. Lord and Lady Strickland have had some wonderful parties at the Villa Bologna. The house is an old Knight of Malta family palace, and is unique for its complete collection of portraits of all the Grand Masters of the Order. Constance Strickland, the Prime Minister's daughter, is one of this season's important debutantes. Lord Strickland has five daughters by his first marriage. One of them, Mabel Strickland, inherits much of her father's talent for affairs as well as his industrious nature (the Prime Minister often rises at five to begin his day's work). She runs a weekly paper in Malta, and superintends the publication of two journals in Maltese, a very difficult language of Semitic origin. Another daughter, Mrs. de Trafford, has a lovely villa on the very edge of the hills in the interior of the island, and gives wonderful parties for the poor children in the neighbourhoold, at which her little son and daughter act as host and hostess. Lady Strickland is again giving dances at her own club, the ladies' Imperial, and her sister-in-law, Lady Hulton, who is on. a visit with her daughter, Betty, has been helping her. New Interval Signal for Radio. Rome and her broadcasting have been much in the news with the Pope giving his Latin talk from the new Vatican station, and Rome itself has been successful in finding a distinctive signal, unlike any other in Europe. Though not as pretty as the musical-box nine note £hime of Bud&pest, it. is an interesting interval signal. It consists of sixteen piping notes repeated, but not in the same pitch. The listener goes on listening as if trying to trap the signal into failing-to change pitch inadvertently.

Flirting Made Easy. The installation of telephones or pneumatic letter tubes from table to table for the exchange of messages in Berlin restaurants and night clubs has brought about a certain abuse, and censors are now engaged in encouraging patrons to use official forms. On the forms are such statements as: " You are my type. Have you any desire to spend the evening in my company ?" Or " There is something about you that appeals to me. May I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance and of dancing the next tango with you?" Then the lonely young man or woman strikes out the questions that do not apply and sends the official message to table number so-and-so. Establishments have a sort of head post office to look after these communications, and the semi-official regulations are comic enough to create a good deal of fun. Unchanging Cosmetics. An antiquarian has excavated near Frankfurt, Germany, a bronze case of bout A.D. 50, containing cosmetics — rouge and antimony and a brown pigment for the skin. The State laboratory has analysed tlie cosmetics, which are in a perfect state of preservation, and finds them to be almost exactly the same as those employed to-day. Perhaps we ought not to accept the view that this discovery is a nasty one against the Roman matron, for the decline and fall had commenced by A.D.50. A Speech in Blank Verse. One of the few Communists in the Swedish Parliament, who is also a wellknown young poet, combined his two vocations recently and delivered his maiden speech in elegant hexameters. With such natural ease did he speak his Communistic declaration of rights that it was not till the next day, when the newspapers printed the speech, that everyone realised it was a regular poem. Swedish is a very' musical, rhythmical language, and other speeches, on examination, have shown lapses into passages -of unconscious verse.—("Star" and N.A.N.A. Copyright.)