A LETTER FROM LONDON

Northern Advocate, 13 October 1928, Page 15

A LETTER FROM LONDON

NEWS AND NOTES.

(All, Rights Reserved.)

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

August 27, 1928,

CH A MBERL AIN TR ADIT lON.

Wo all hope Sir Austen Chamberlain 's health may Ibe restored by the rest holiday he is now compelled to take. His devotion to the fascinating work of Foreign Office has Been exemplary, and he has always been inclined to take things very seriously. Like his famous father, he makes a point of taking no exercise, beyond perhaps a little quiet gardening. This ■Chamberlain tradition has often been quoted by critics against our physical fitness cult, and one gossip w r riter skates that Sir Austen has never 'been ill before. 'This is quite wrong. He had a bad breakdown before the war when he was at the Treasury and comparatively a young man. Neither he nor his father ever impressed me as really convincing examples against systematic exercise. They both always looked far too sallow and sedentary to be anything like fit men. EARL MARSHAL DEPUTY.

Viscount Fizalafl, who has gone to the Continent for a month's holiday, must bo looking forward to May of next year, when with the coming of ago of the Duke of Norfolk, his, nephew, he will be relieved of his duties as Earl Marshal. These he has discharged for 11 years as deputy for his half-brother, the late Duke. The work of the office, which is hereditary, is 'exceedingly heavy at the time of a Royal Coronation, and otherwise it involves a good deal of ceremonial routine of such occasions as the admission of new peers to take their .seats in the House of Lords. The present Duke, I am told, is as shy and unassuming as -was his father, who was notorious as one of the most shabbily-dressed men in the House of Lords, and also one of ‘the ablest and kindest hearted. CRICKETER'S AMBITION. Frank Maun, who has just resigned the captaincy of the Middlesex cricket team, is always a joy to watch ■when he is making runs. He is probably the hardest driver in the game today, and he has amused himself and the crowd on many occasions at Lord's by “hitting 'em’’ into the pavilion, or over the sighting board into the practice ground, as the ease may be. He once confessed that Ms main cricketing ambition was to smash a ball through the weatheryane which .surmounts the main grand stand on the Lord’s ground. This is a vane of unique design, for its component parts include Father Time and three stumps. “I’d love to knocß the old fellow off his perch,’’ said the Middlesex skipper when confessing his ambition. But as the wickets ar.e pitched at Lord’s only a square leg hit could achieve this desired result, and Mann, as I have said, is primarily and pre-eminently a driver. FEATHERED PACIFISTS.

It seemed a particularly bad omen for Prance, with her falling population statistics, when the storks deserted Alsace. These birds, the grave and reverend seigniors of the feathered world, used to he common in Alsace, but, as one might infer from their Quaker-like solemnity, storks ar,o groat pacifists. They were frightened by the uproar of the guns during the war, and migrated on masse and on famille for Northern Africa. For more than sentimental or superstitious reasons, the Alsatian peasantry grieved over this, and have endeavoured to entice them back by placing old cartwheels on their roofs as suitable nesting platforms. And now it appears that the storks, ten years after the Armistice, arc beginning to show signs of returning to their old haunts. Presumably they have waited until they felt certain that the abnormal thunderstorm w T as over. , CHARLIE CHAPLIN. Charlie Chaplin has no intention of returning to England to live when the time comes for him to retire. So X am informed; by a. correspondent who accompanied the famous film actor on many of his nightly jaunts round London during his visit here a few years ago. Ou one occasion Chaplin was asked point blank whether he would come back to England to settle down when ho retired from film-work. He replied with a decided negative. Although, he said, lie had a great affection for the land of his birth, lie had grown so fond of American ways and American standards of living that he had made up his mind to spend the remainder of his life in California. My correspondent states that Chaplin was thinking of taking another trip home next year, but the unhappy loss of his mother will most likely cause him to change his plans.