COUNTESS ARRIVES LATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20668, 13 September 1930, Page 2 (Supplement)

COUNTESS ARRIVES LATE.

FOUNDATION-STONE COMEDY*

HELD UP IN STREET CROWD*

This is what happened to the founds* tion-stone of a new extension to the Lloyd Memorial (Caxton) Seaside Home at Deal, Kent, recently. The stone was supposed to have beia well and truly laid in the afternoon by, the Countess of Minto. But it was not* The countess was not there!

Mayor, aldermen, town dignitaries, and leaders of county society were all on the spot at the appointed time, surrounded by bands and flags and bunting. Th« crowds were there. The stone was there. But the countess—where was she? Officials became worried. Telegraph offices and telephones got busy. Nothing was known of the countess at her home except that she was " out." Then the countess herself got on the telephone and explained that sho was held up in holiday traffic but " oughfc%o be 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 the 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 it ?