NEARLY 4000 “SAXPENCES”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21300, 2 April 1931, Page 12

NEARLY 4000 “SAXPENCES”

SIR HARRY LAUDER’S PARTY FORTY GUESTS ENTERTAINED, Sir Harry Lauder enjoyed a joke in London, on February 4—at his own expense ! He gave a lunch to 40 of his friends on the eve of his departure for South Africa, his “ sixth farewell tour,” as he called it, and he paid the bill himself ! It cost him nearly £100! The Prime Minister, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, was among those present. The jokes associated with the party alone were worth the money. Sir Thomas Lipton wrote from Cannes expressing his regret. “ I nearly thought of flying over to attend,” he wrote. “If I had been certain Harry would have paid my fare I certainly would have done so. “ Harry and I are going to challenge together for the America Cup. I am going to supply all the experience; Harry will bear all the costs.” “ I am hoping, now that Harry has etartefl hitting the high spots,” wrote Arthur Dewar, the inheritor of Lord Dewar’s millions, “he will never cease in his well-doing.” All the jokes were like that, says Mr Hannen Swatter, in the Daily Express, all the speeches were in that vein. So that everybody could have a souvenir of this historic occasion there were specially printed menus. “Luncheon given by Sir Harry Lauder to his friends ” was on the first page. The wines, Fine Dry Amontillado and G. H. Mumm and Co., Cordon Rouge, 1920, were listed with Courvoisers’ Napoleon, the most expensive brandy, on the second, while opposite were the details of the seven-course lunch —hors d’ouvre, and smoked salmon, clear soup, filleted sole, roast saddle of lamb with new potatoes and brussels sprouts, roast fowl, vanilla ice, with pastries and fruit, and coffee.