In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 21

In the Public Eye

MR. CORDELL HULL.

Perhaps the most outstanding personal achievement of Cordell Hull as U.S. Secretary of State is his success in winning the genuine good will and admiration of Latin-American statesmen. While outwardly reserved and aloof, his inherent tactfulness and modesty, brilliantly displayed at the 1933 Pan-American Conference in Montevideo, won him the sincere esteem of the super-sensitive Latins. To Mr. Hull's intimate friends his mastery of the art of diplomacy is no surprise. They tell this story to illustrate his early proclivity in this direction: As a young man Mr. Hull was a horseback-riding circuit Judge in the mountains of Tennessee. One day, on the eve of a Court session, he was approached by an old woman. "Judge," she said, "you've heard your father tell of being left for dead on. the battlefield (Mr. Hull's father was a Confederate Captain), and how a woman took him to her cabin and nursed him back to health?" "Yes." "Well, Judge, I'm that woman. I've come-to ask, a favour of you. My-son is in gaol. and is going to be tried, by you tomorrow. We've got no money to pay a fine, and they'll put him in gaol if he'don't pay.' I've got no one to support me, Judge, if they take my son away. Can't you do something to help me?" ■Hull pondered a moment, then without saying a word pulled out his wallet and hande.d the w.oman £8. . Next day he heard the case, ' pronounced the young man guilty, and imposed a fine. The fine was £8: Mr. 11. J. Brown. A youth who was 18 last June played a part in designing the King Edward VIII stamps. He is Mr. H. J. Brown, of Torquay. This revelation, made in "Gibbons Stamp Monthly," indicates that it is incorrect to believe that there is a "close corporation" of designers of British stamps.. It shows that there is no restriction as to who may submit designs. Correspondents have recently suggeslea in the London "Daily Telegraph" that there is a virtual mono poly in stamp designing which excludes the "unknown" or "frre lance" designer. The "unknown," however, has as good a chance as the famous artist. The G.P.O. committee of five, which niaj be reinforced in the future by a representative of the Royal Fine Arts Commission, examines designs before submitting the best few to the King for his final choice. It considers each design strictly on its merits. "Early in the year," it is stated, "Mr. Brown thought that he would like to try his hand at the job, and after considerable thought and experiment, evolved a design which has all the essentials of the one actually used. . . ." Features of it were the light and dark shading, and the positions of the figure of value" and the crown. The G.P.O. acknowledge that "certain features of Mr. Brown's design were used in the stamp." Mr. Brown is a member of the Torquay and Exeter Philatelic Societies. He is a talented mathematician and linguist. He left Monckton Combe School in 1935 and is now a ! member of the Institute of Actuaries. Recently he started his career with a : London assurance company. Another j instance of G.P.O. impartiality was the choice of -Mr. Barnett Freedman's de- ! sign for the King. George V Jubilee stamp. When his design was accepted Mr. Freedman, who was then 33, had J lived in a state of semi-starvation, for , years. Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith. < Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith was , born 1 in Philadelphia in. 1865, ,and.educated I at Harvard and at Balliol College, Ox-' j ford, but his literary life has. been ! lived in England. His books have been 1 well received,- for he is an authority , on English words and on English and French books. Certainly his botjk, [ "Words and Idioms" (1925) is a fund E of knowledge for beginners in the art I of writing. His latest collection of essays, "Reperusals and. Re-collections," j is the outcome of reading .once more a series of books long loved, besides 1 some reprints that have been largely rewritten. Mr. Pearsall Smith has \ been, he says, a desultory reader. And there is much to be said in favour of J desultory reading if the reader has ' good taste. It becomes one. of the most pleasant recreations in. life, a re- 1 creation that does riot preclude out- ' growing i book. Mr. Pearsall Smith t begins with Montaigne, and on a per- -c sonal note- that reads like enjoyable t table talk, speaking up even for the t "Confessions" and for Montaigne's c "serious moral purpose in'his self-por- h trayali" The next chapter is much g longer, and more elaborate: discourse p on "Madame de Sevigne in theCCoun t try" as mistress of a large estate, n planting trees, writing letters to the a beloved daughter, growing old. "That ti eternal daughter," as Edward Fitz- b gerald called her, kept Horace Walpole o and himself away from her. Madame's \ absurd passion for Walpole is touched I lightly. But everybody knows about \ that famous Frenchwoman. One of s his best essays, "Gertrude Jekyll," is n about a distinguished lady gardener r and word-fancier, a friend of Mr. S Pearsall Smith who lived until well b nigh ninety years. It is a charming d sketch. One of an ancient county h family, she studied painting in early n life, but an affection of the eyes forced C her to abandon it, and she turned to si scientific gardening, writing, editing, sc experimenting, and became one of two tl noted English gardeners. Miss Jekyll g: built herself a house and laid out her IV garden in Munstead Wood/ G'odalming. i r Her memorialist was taken to see' her tl many years ago by a mutual friend, S James Britten, botanist and gardener. S "Their friendship was a cat-and-dog T relationship; Britten being the cat and tl Miss Jekyll the big, good-natured dog" ri capable of growling at a little man's IV fault-finding. That was the beginning p< of a long friendship between Miss fr Jekyll, who loved a skirmish with tc words and would never give in, and S Mr. Pearsall Smith. R

GENERAL ITAGAKI.

r A striking new figure is rising among ls the Japanese Army leaders. He is Lieutenant-General Itagaki, Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, which provides the North China garrison. A Japanese officer said of him recently: le "Watch Itagaki! He will shortly ben come a national, and eventually a " e world, figure." s- He stated that the "Itagaki cult is was : sweeping the army , owing to the 10 General's unusual magnetic power over junior and senior officers alike. is He is regarded as the brains of the expedition to the Asiatic mainland. a In some quarters it is openly urged ie that he should be advanced to supreme n military authority at once. Others ad- ?' vocate that he should remain a "power behind the throne." • ■ " General Itagaki headed the army d leaders who ■ took part recently in a ir remarkable demonstration at Tunga chow, capital of East Hopei. East Hopei was one of the North China provinces, but has declared its independence. e The demonstration was to celebrate n the first anniversary of the province's y autonomy. Although Tungchow is only y twelve miles from Peking, the celen brations were reported to be intended ® as an open defiance of the Central y Government. 0 Professor R. M, Crawford. i- At a meeting of the Council of the it Melbourne University recently the chair of history committee unanimous- )- ly recommended that Mr. R. M. Crawd ford, of Sydney, be appointed to the chair of history. The recommendation was adopted. There were six applications from abroad, and twelve from Australia and New Zealand. Mr. Crawford is thirty years of age, 1 and is a graduate of the Sydney Uni--11 versity: At the conclusion of his s course he gained first-class honours in e modern history and English, and scvs eral scholarships, including the Wool- ® ley Travelling Scholarship, which 1 enabled him to continue his studies at " Oxford. He was afterwards a master ' f at the Sydney Grammar School. Two " years later he returned to Oxford to fill ;■ the position temporarily of the senior tutor in history in Balliol College. At '> the end of 1934 he became lecturer in s history at the Sydney University, and last year was acting head of the His- - tory School there. Mr. Crawford will - take up his duties at the beginning of s February. 2 The Deputy Chancellor (Sir John 3 Latham) said he was greatly impressed with Mr. Crawford. An increase in • the personnel of the history school : 5 was needed. It was quite impossible - for one man to carry the whole bur- , den and it would be a good thing if ; a.second appmntmerit could •&: made. The University was' fortunate in havl ing an Australian available who had ; had' such a wide experience in the . teaching of history abroad. [ Michael Kriek. jj Gipsies, are scattered all over the . ,world, and' an enterprising Transyl- . vanian gipsy, Michael Kriek, evolved [ the, idea of establishing a gipsy kingdom, of which, of course, he would become king. He got into touch on this ; subject with -M. Titulescu, but when ; he received no satisfactory reply he moved on to Poland, and there he was crowned king of all gipsi.es by a small but all the more enthusiastic crowd. But no sooner was the crown placed on his head than he and his adherents were driven out from the forest where they had taken temporary refuge. He'then applied'to Great Britain and explained the gipsies are, after all, related to the Indians, and if Britain was gen'erdus enough to settle Jews in Palestine, why' shouldn't she do the same with tlie poor wandering gipsies in some remote part of India? It seems, however, that the gipsy king did not have much success there either, for, accompanied by his two secretaries and his ■ master of, ceremonies, he is now on the way to Hungary, where his comrades have raised him to the rank of President of the Music Caterers of the entertainment industry. But the Hungarian tziganes prefer a dinner jacket to a royal robe and a fiddle to the sceptre; and reports indicate that the Hungarian police are not very enthusiastic about the scheme either. Mr. Benjamin Pollock. Mr. Benjamin Pollock, the last toy theatre maker, was 80 years old recently. He was too unwell to attend the exhibition of juvenile , drama at tlie George. Lin, Southwark, in honour of his birthday. Opening the exhibition, Mr. J.. B. Priestley solemnly ■gave juvenile drama /an important place in the history of the English theatre. It: was a record, he said, of nineteenth century. popular drama, and a mine'of information for old costumes and setting's. ' Nowhere could be found 'such faithful: representations of the great actors —Kemble, Kean, Vestris, and Grimaldi. Mr. Gerald Morice, .of the British Puppet Guild, which was organising the exhibition, said that he had recently shown specimens of. Mr. Pollock's work in Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Switzerland, and they had been greatly admired. The guests inspected the display of Mr. .Pollocks works, including "The. ■ Miller and his Men," the most popular of all, produced by Charles Dickens, as a schoolboy, with such a realistic explosion in the last scene that it attracted the notice of the police. On view also were photographs of Mr. Pollock with his bride. Miss Redingt'on, and of his son—killed in the war—who was trained to enter the business with him. Mr. Robert c Speaight, the actor, read aloud R. L. Stevenson's essay, "A Penny Plain and | Twopence Coloured." Mr. Pollock is I the last of his profession since his rival, H. J. Webb, died two years ago. _ Mr. Webb's shop still exists, but few = people in the neighbourhood remember the name of Webb. Mr. Pollock took over his business in Hoxton Street from his father-in-law, Mr. J. Redington, in 1877.