A LETTER FROM LONDON

Northern Advocate, 17 February 1926, Page 8

A LETTER FROM LONDON

NEWS AND NOTES. (Special to “Northern Advocate.”) | LONDON, December 31. THE 100,000 th CHILD. I Barnardo’s have just achieved what is probably the greatest of all family records. Their 100,000 th child has been received! Impossible? , Not when your family motto is “No Destitute Child Ever Refused Admission,” and your family crest is an ever-open door. Work along those lines has been in progress- for 60 years,, and it is no surprise, therefore, that 100,000 children have been rescued. Dr. Barnardo’s Homes surely have the largest family in the world, for it increases on an average by five new arrivals daily, and its total is never less than 7300. It can’t be easy to 1 rear such a family! But it is worth I the rearing, for facts have shown that their boys and girls make excellent citizens and good home-makers. But what of little 100,0001 It ought to be a career worth watching, this successor to the 99,999 who have gone before.

“LITTLE FRIEND OF ALL THE WORLD.”

Mr. Geoghegan, who organised the Christmas outing on a Thames houseboat, is one of the most charming men I have ever met. He has practically devoted his life to bringing games and happiness into the lives of London boys, and his house on Parliament Hill is besieged by youngsters intent on dragging him forth for football or cricket on Hampstead Heath. Every year during the summer holidays he rents a great school in the West country to which he takes scores of boys for a real country change. Each boy is expected to make a small contribution towards the expenses; but there is .a shrewd suspicion ‘that if the contribution is not readily forthcoming Mr. Geoghegan provides it’ out of his own pocket. He himself, if he had not dgvoted all his leisure moments to good deeds, might ■'have made hig name in the realms of amateur sport. A great swimmer, he is one of the finest “trick” divers in the country.

NEW STAGE STAR. Some sound critics are predicting big things for a new London “jeuno premiere.” The actor ifi question is Mr. Dodd Mehan, now playing the lover in “Tell Me More,” the Winter Garden musical comedy in which Miss Heather Thatcher and Mr. Leslie Henson are principals. This new potential West fend star is a young Australian, only just on the threshold of the thirties, who has in his, time played many parts, both on and off the stage. He interrupted a good education by running away to sea at the age of fourteen, and he has tried his hand at many things. He has been a stock rider in the real wilds, an overseer of native labourers, a journalist, and an actor. He jumped right into the War from the word “Go,” serving with the Anzacs in New Guinea, and on the Western Front, where he shared the memorable Somme fighting of 1916. He was an acting staffcaptain before the close, and must have * r looked the part ’ ’ admirably, Mr. Dodd Mehan is modestly reticient about himself —rather a startling innovation'in “jeune premieres”—but on one point he is enthusiastic. He is concerned, it seems, in a new motor venture —a genuine £SO two-seater! He is more eager to talk about that than about himself.

RUBBING IT IN! These quiet, uncrowded afternoons it is possible to get on far more intimate terms with the Zoo’s boarders than at any other time. My personal joy is buying a tin of treacle for the bears. These motor-furred animals would sell their souls for treacle—supposing it.will not run to real honey. One married Bruin, though jealously ' conserving the jar to himself alone, was distressed to note that his desperate wife, who equally adores such sweet stuff, managed nevertheless to get a certain amount of the precious ! fluid that was spilled -on the cage floor. So he hit on the ingenious plan, instead of devouring it standing- up, ' of lying on his back to sup, thus securing all overflow on his own motorcoat, where it could later be licked off at comfortable sweet leisure, i Christmas crackers and balloons charm the monkeys. They eagerly pull the former, when the bang causes eesta sies of excitement, and they soon | ‘ ‘ bust ’ ’ the latter, when the mystery | of the balloon’s sudden disappearance , causes long and .animated debate. A DARWINIAN TRAIT.

I fancy these debates often assume the form of an indictment. Some notorious character, well known .in the settlement for his Army Jhabit of f< winning”, desirable objects,. is suspected . of having mysteriously hidden the fascinating top.- l?ut, lest we grow race conscious and superior at the expense of our humble biological ancestors, consider with due attention, the behaviour of Sandy, the Zoo’s most famous orang-utang. I am not positive, but I suspect Sandy of being a lady, and the suspicion is strongly buttressed by her behaviour when someone obligingly pulls a Christmas cracker, with her. The bang alarms Sandy not at all now. She expects it with emotional blinks as she pulls. But she promptly rifles the broken cracker for its paper cap, . and, with an air that almost in itself confirms the Darwinian theory, adorns her head with it. She never fails to do this. Such intelligent instinct must surely give the ladies pause!