In the Public Eye

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 50, 27 August 1938, Page 21

In the Public Eye

An hour of tennis every day, and no lunch, even if there is a King or President of State as guest, to last longer than for twenty minutes—that is the way for a democratic King to keep fit. In that manner has King Gustav of Sweden lived, and he was 80 years I old on June 16. He was the guest of honour at a gala lunch, given to him in the romantic golden Town Hall of Stockholm by representatives of the Swedish people—but they had to keep it short. In memory of the day a fund of £200,000-is to be I raised to aid scientific research about rheumatism and infantile paralysis. Practically every man and woman in Sweden has contributed to the fund. For Sweden is proud of her unconventional King, who is even a master of the art of needlework, and he has specialised in a style that was practised at the famous French and Italian studios in the seventeenth century. And he is well known as Sweden's keenest collector of old Swedish silver, pottery, and china, of which he has the finest collection in the world. He has found antique Swedish silver pieces in small secondhand- shops in Rome and Paris, and he knows every piece that a collector would prize. He is a democrat among democrats. Nothing proves this better than the fact that the Swedish Social Democrats, years ago a republican party, are being called today "The Royal Social Democrats." And no figure in the revues on the Stockholm stage is more frantically applauded than "the grand old man" of the Stockholm palace. It was said a few years ago that a Communist leader, asked whom he would make president of a Soviet Sweden, answered, "King Gustaf—of course!" Though Sweden is one of the most democratic countries, the King still has a big part to play in the affairs of State. He is president of his Government and has to preside over the Cabinet every Friday, and sometimes Tuesdays too. After lunch—his hour of tennis. And every Thursday fo» dinner he has served the national dish of salted pork and pease pudding. Many an evening is spent with the Freemasons. He is the Grand Master of the Freemasonry of Sweden and the "high protector" of the whole "system" of Swedish Freemasonary. He often presides over the lodges of Stockholm twice or three times in the week. Every spring he is at Nice, on the French Riviera, where he takes an eager part in international tennis. In spite of his years, he is a player of skill. There is hardly a famous player he has not partnered. The happiest hours of the old king are with his grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. The girls are his special favourites, and no two get more attention than the late Queen Astrid of Belgium and the Crown Princess Ingrid of Denmark, the great-granddaughter of the Duke of Connaught. Mr. John Solomon. A zealous British policeman who nearly ruined a concert figured in the memories of sixty-eight years as a trumpeter, which Mr. John Solomon recalled recently on his 82nd birthday. The policeman was on duty in Leeds Town Hall, and Mr. Solomon was in the orchestra playing in a musical festival. The item required a solo "off," and Mr. Solomon went up into "the gods," but a man with a trumpet wandering up there in the middle of a concert aroused the policeman's professional interest. "What are you doing up here?" he asked suspiciously. But the trumpeter's moment had arrived, and his answer was a blast on his instrument. Official confirmation of the trumpeter's good intentions had to be obtained before the policeman was satisfied. Mr. Solomon, who has retired from the position of professor of the trumpet at the Royal Academy of Music, began his career at the age of five. Dressed in a little frock, he stood on a chair on the stage of the Britannia Theatre, Hoxton, and played a drum polka. He was fourteen when he went to the Royal Academy of Music, of which he became an associate in 1895, and a fellow in 1922. His appointment as professor of the trumpet was in 1894. ! He has been principal trumpeter at leading concerts in London, and at great musical festivals throughout the country. He was a founder of the London Symphony Orchestra, and was principal trumpeter at the Coronations of Edward VII and George V, marching into Westminster Abbey with two other trumpeters playing fanfares. La Pasionaria. The American sculptor Jo Davidson was in Barcelona recently to model some of the Spanish Loyalists and especially La Pasionaria, Communist heroine of the workers. A tall, robust, dark-haired woman of 43, her real name is Dolores Ibarruri. The workers renamed her La Pasionaria—Passion Flower—because of her beauty, oratorical power, and loyalty to their cause. Throughout the civil war she has been a prominent figure, travelling abroad to enlist aid for the Loyalists, speaking at home to stimulate prosecution of the war. La Pasionaria, mother of two boys, was once a laundress in a little mining town of the Asturias. She sympathised with the miners in their strikes. Soon she was in politics, first as a Socialist, later as a Communist. The Primo de Rivera dictatorship put her in prison. The Republic sent her to the Cortes as a Communist Deputy. Once she presided over a meeting of the Third International. Early in the civil war La Pasionaria organised 100,000 women in an anti-Fascist organisation, and throughout the war has urged that the issue was not between Communism and Fascism but between Fascism and democracy. (

j Howard Hughes, some months away [from his thirty-third birthday, calls himself a sportsman aviator. His association with motion picture production and with Hollywood movie stars gained for him the name of a playboy with a purpose. Twelve years ago, when he took the 17,000,000 dollars he inherited from his father and went to Hollywood, his purpose was to make pictures. In the last six years, however, his purpose has been to promote aviation. Four years ago he founded the Hughes Aircraft Company, and many of the planes with which he. made aviation history have been the products of this plant. Whenever the planes he desires to use for experiments were made by other manufacturers, he took them to his plant and rebuilt them according to his own ideas. Airmen credit him with a sound, scientific knowledge of aero-dynamics. Hughes was born on December 24, 1905, in Houston, Texas, the son of Howard Robard and Helen G. Hughes. His father made his fortune in the Texas oil fields. He invented an oil well drill and founded the Hughes Tool Company to manufacture it. When he died in 1924, two years after the death of Mrs. Hughes, the business was turned over to Howard, who remained the operating head for two years. Then he went to Los Angeles to live with his uncle, Rupert Hughes, the novelist, and engage in picture-making. His first venture was in financing a picture for another producer. After he learned a bit about how pictures were made he produced several for himself. His most pretentious picture was "Hell's Angels," made as a silent movie at a cost of 2,000,000 dollars, and remade with sound for 1,500,000. The picture increased Hughes's fortune by several millions. Soon after Hughes turned to aviation he started making records as a speed flyer. In 1935 he set a land speed record of 352.388 miles an hour; a few months later he flew from Los Angeles to New York in 9 hours 26 minutes; a year later he flew from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, in 7 hours 28 minutes at an average speed of 332 miles an hour. Recently he made a record round-the-world flight, and he has followed this by a record westeast flight in the United States for a commercial plane last week. In 1925 Hughes married Ella Rice, of Houston. They were divorced four years later. His name has been linked romantically with a number of stage and screen actresses since. Captain H. G. Kendall. Captain H. G. Kendall, the Canadian Pacific Steamships' Commander, who was primarily responsible for the arrest in Canadian waters twenty-eight years ago of Dr. Crippen, using the then noveL medium of wireless to inform Scotland Yard of his suspicions, is retiring at the end of the northern summer after,so years' service. For fourteen years now he has been Marine Superintendent of the C.P.S. at the Surrey Commercial Docks, his duties being the shore supervision of the Beaver, "fleet of freighters plying weekly between London, Continental ports, and Montreal. With twp brief interludes on shore, he spent .the previous thirty-six years afloat, commanding several of the Canadian Pacific vessels. During the Great War he served with the naval forces in many capacities, and towards the end was Ocean Commodore in charge of 40-ship convoys of merchantmen. It was when Captain Kendall was captain of the liner Montrose that he became so well known to the public. Before he left Antwerp on. July 20, 1910, in his ship, he had read of the world-hunt for Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen, whose wife's remains had been found buried in the cellar of their home in Hilldrop Crescent, Camden Town. Crippen and his companion, Miss Ethel Le Neve, had disappeared. Soon after the voyage began Captain Kendall's quick eye detected something unusual about two of the passengers, a Mr. Robinson and his "son." His suspicions of their true identityincreased to the point when he sent his wireless message to Scotland Yard: "Crippen and Miss Le Neve are on the Montrose." Chief Inspector Dew, of Scotland Yard, crossed to Canada in a faster liner, boarded the Montrose at Father Point, near the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, and arrested the couple. Crippen was hanged; Miss Le Neve, accused as an accomplice, was acquitted. Captain Kendall was in command of the Empress of Ireland when she was sunk by the Norwegian collier Storstad in the St. Lawrence in May, 1914, with heavy loss of life. At that time Captain Kendall was 38. Queen Alexandrine. Two fox terriers were romping recently on the beach at Skagen, tip of the Danish peninsula in North Jutland. With them was their mistress, 58-year-old Queen Alexandrine of j Denmark. A stray mongrel appeared on the beach, attacking the terriers. In attempting to separate the fighting dogs, the Queen was severely bitten; after receiving treatment at a nearby hospital, she returned to the royal residence of Klitgaarden. Engagements were cancelled. Queen Alexandrine, who was once described as "friendly and human,^ is a sister of the ex-Crown Princess Cecilie of Germany, and is herself a German, having been born in Schwerin, capital of the old Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. In 1898 Alex-andrine-Augustine, a girl of eighteen, was married to Christian. Crown Prince of Denmark. They ascended the throne fourteen years later. The Danish rulers, noted for their democratic characteristics, spend a good deal of time travelling, visiting the Riviera, London, and, most frequently, their royal relatives in Oslo and Stockholm.