NEWS OF THE WORLD

Greymouth Evening Star, 1 September 1920, Page 8

NEWS OF THE WORLD

£9 A DAY STREET ARTIST. 10 HOURS’ WORK AND SIX DAYS’ PLAY. A free-lance pavement artist who works one day a week and earns enough to go awaj - ' for week-end holidays is a new facet of London life. One morning he was in Oxford Street, and his paintings, which were placed against a wall, attracted much attention. There were futurist pictures, political cartoons, and illustrated jokes executed with no little skill. The artist himself was a good-looking young ex-soldier with fair wavy hair and pince-nez, and he sat on the pavement deeply absorbed in a book, only looking up now and again to give a word of thanks for some contribution which had dropped into his hat. “I do this only once a week,” he said, and cont.nued lightly: “I only 1 need do that. When I have exhibited in Piccadilly I have earned as much as £8 or £9 in one day. I find it works out like this : Piccadilly, £1 an hour ; Streatham, 10s an hour ; and an outlying place like Lewisham, 5s ?n hour. I tried that only once. I usually exhibit six or eight hours a day, unless I am going away for a week-end—to Brighton or anywhere. Then I work 10 hours. “During the week I pass the time pleasantly enough between smoke ; nd slumber. The only time this work cost me anything was the first time. It was the outcome of a bet with a woman —gloves against cigars—that I would show my pictures in Piccadilly. “I expect to get a grant soon from the Government to enable me to become a commercial artist. Tillthen, however, I am. very happy as T am. I choose my pitch. I choose my time. I work when I like, and the money drops into that hat. I have made plenty of friends, and I need work only one day a week.” He smiled a good-byo and picked up his book, and in a moment was absorbed in it once more. Its title was “The Art of Publicity.” POLLY THE PUSSYFOOT. Pussyfoot Poll has arrived in London. To discover the conversational power of a consignment of parrots he recently received, a London bird dealer took them one by one into a room and tried to draw them out. One of the birds watched his efforts for a while, with head on one side ; then cried : “Keep off the drink ! Keep off the drink!” Then, encouraged to continue by the surprised dealer, the parrot delivered itself of the following shrill cry : Whisky weakens wills. Barley water, barley water. Hello, hello! Stop your boozin! The dealer found that several of them had been coached in the same way. “It looks like a new form of propaganda, by the Prohibitionists,” he told ‘‘The Weekly Dispatch.” “The birds have obviously been well coached in the language, for they utter nothing but advice against drink. They speak with a sureness that proves they have had a long and thorough training Several other dealers, I 'hear, have made the same discovery recently”

The American Prohibitionists in London, however, deny all knowledge of the matter. “Such a method has not been resorted to either here or in America,” said a colleague of Mr. “Pussyfoot” Johnson. “It would only bring the campaign into contempt.” MILLIONS OF MEDALS. Mr. Churchill’s announcement that eight millions of war medals and six and a-half millions of Victory medals will be issued foreshadows a busy time for the Mint and a vast consumption of silver. It may be assumed that the metlals will be of silver and not of nev coinage alloy(says the Daily Chronicle). When the seamen of Nelson’s fleet after Trafalgar were presented with pewter medals' they indignantly threw them overboard. For a hundred years the British service medal has been of silver, and has been bestowed upon all ranks alike. The army owes that to the Duke oT Wellington, who, after Waterloo, wrote home suggesting that such a medal should be issued. Before then Peninsular medals had been granted to the higher ranks of officers only and were of gold . THE PEACEFUL SMOKE. i Ferris Brown, lace maker at Zion City (on the Ist of last month), petitioned the State Attorney of Lake County for a permit to carry a I’evolver so he can smoke unannounced. A loaded gun is a necessary adjunct to a smoker’s k't in Zion Citv, he savs. Overseer Wilbur Glenn Voliva, of the Zion City Church, has retained sluggers to enforce his anrv-tobacco decree, and two attacked him the other night while he was smoking a cigarette, Brown alleges. THEATRE TEARS. LONLOrN, July 25. It is a strange sight to see a West End audience irankxy give its'eii over to crying, but it happens, daily at the Haymaiivet Theatre, where “oxary Rose'’ is oeing played. Mary Muse nas been lost for 25 years. So wondermiy has Sir James Barr.e written the play that it does not strike you as at all impossible that she would have heard the call, of the Scot’s island and stayed away ail that time. Everything is amaz.ngiy real and just as things might happen. No one cries when she vanishes, but when Mr. Robert Loraine, who is Mary Rose’s sailor husband, reads that she is coming back, emotion takes possession of the house.' Women weep openly and unconstrainedly, men pretend to blow their noses. It is remarkable in so distinguished a theatre. Mary Rose, who is really that high priestess of emotional acting, Miss Fay Compton, cannot understand things at all when she returns home. Her pathetic appeals to everyone toexplain—“Be nice, Simon: be nice,” she pleads, putting her head on her husband’s shoulder just as an unhappy child might —-bring more tears to those sitting and watching. Her simle, piteous voice, her'forlorn youth in a world which has grown 25 years older while she has stood still, strike a chord that only tears can respond to. , : ’ In all parts of fh" dimly lighted theatre the sobs of women can be

caught, the fluttering of handkerchiefs sensed. Not far many years has any Wd?st End play so affected those who go to it as does “Mary Rose.” The audience takes a long t : me after the curtain has fallen on Mary Rose leaving her baby (grown into a soldier whom she does not 'know) for tin island which calls her once again to leave the scene, of such quaint conceit and beautiful pathos for the reality of the sun flooded June afternoon streets. And, unlike most audiences, they are very quiet. Perhaps they do not fully trust their voices. WON’T BE KILLED. Mr. H. G. Hawker, the airman and motorist who has earned the title of “the man who won’t be killed.” had a wonderful escape at Brooklands. While he was test.ng a 4jo h.p. Sunbeam motor car, and travelling at a terrific speed, it dashed off the track tearing a gap in the corrugated iron fencing the size of a house. The nose of the car was smashed, but Mr. Hawker cooly alighted, stood besides his damaged car, and invited the photographers to “snap” him. In the afternoon he won a race at 9g miles an hour. Mr. Hawker can now count more thrilling escapes than almost any other man. Here are some of his adventures : August, 1913. —When he made his gallant attempt to win the Daily Mail “Round Britain” flight prize he met with an accident in alighting off Dublin. October 8, 1913.—While flying at Brooklands a sudden gust of wind caused him to crash, and he was taken to hospital. March 8, 1914. —Fell again while flying at Albury, South Wales, escaping without injury. June 27, 1914. —Fell into trees at Brooklands from a height of 500 feet while .looping the loop. Unhurt; machine smashed. February 27, 1916. —At Brooklands the cowl of his engine blew off in midair. Again unhurt; machine damaged. < May 18, 1919.—Mr. Hawker’s famous rescue, with Leut-Commander Mackenzie Grieve, from the Atlantic, while making the flight for the Daily Mail £lo,ooo' prize. From the moment the .passed over, the coast line no news -was heard till seven days later, when a Danish steamer repoi'ted their rescue. Another wonderful escape at Brooklands . was that of Captain C. L. E. Geach, when; at a speed of probably more than. 100 miles an hour, his car overturned and threw him out. He was practically unhurt.