COUNTESS ARRIVES LATE

Evening Star, Issue 20592, 18 September 1930, Page 9

COUNTESS ARRIVES LATE

FOUNDATION STONE COMEDY HELD UP IN STREET CROWD. This is what happened to the foundation stone of a new extension to the Llovd Memorial (Oaxton) Seaside Homo at Deal, Kent, recently. The stono was supposed to have been well and truly laid in the afternoon by tho CoUntess of Miuto. But it was not. The countess was not there! Mayor, aldermen, town dignitaries, and leaders of county society were all on tho spot at the appointed time, surrounded by bands and flags and bunting. The crowds wore there. The stone was there. But the countess—where was she ? . Officials became worried. Telegraph offices and telephones got busy. Nothing was known of tho countess at her, homo except that she'was “ out.” Then the countess herself got on the telephone and explained that she was held up in holiday traffic, but “ ought to bo there in twenty minutes.” Twenty, thirty, forty-five minutes passed—and still no countess. The City Fathers then put their heads together, with the result that the Mayor himself took the trowel and mallet and applied tho necessary tap to tho stone. , , . No sooner had the deed been done than the countess rushed .on to the scene. Too late! As a newspaper points out—this point remains: What will the stone’s inscription tell posterity? Will it bo the truth—that the mayor, laid