MOCK TRIAL.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 139, 12 May 1930, Page 2

MOCK TRIAL.

DAVID LOW ARRAIGNED. HUMORISTS WORK FOR CHARITY. Among the multitude of sins admittedly covered by charity must be included the laboriously humorous trial of the cartoonist, Mr David Low, by the “Fuil Court” at the London School of Economics on a charge of libelling politicians. The trial was one of a burlesque series devised to raise money for eleemosynary purposes, but regrettably enough the auction sale of Low’s evidence-in-chief realised a mere £lO for King Edward’s Hospital. The only glimmer of humour in the painstaking attempts of England’s leading humorists to be funny could be discovered in Low’s own remarks. Mr A. P. Herbert, of Punch, well-known in Australia as the most amusing member of the last Press Conference, declared as prosecuting counsel that Mr Low held up his fehowmen to ridicule by emphasising their ignoble physical characteristics rather than their inspiring spiritual qualities. Mr Philip Guedalla, the historian and biographer, contended that Low’s work proved him not a villifier, but a beauty specialist. Low skilfully demonstrated how he expressed the soul of his subject through his art. He pointed out that the essential characteristic of the Lord Privy Seal (Mr J. H. Thomas) was a dress suit, without which he could not be depicted. When Mr W. Pett-Ridge, another noted humorist, summed up, the best ho could do was to give the verdict to both parties.