OCR LONDON LETTER

Taranaki Daily News, 22 December 1924, Page 11

OCR LONDON LETTER

A NOTABLE ADMIRAL. DEATH OF SIR PERCY SCOTT. (From Our Own Correspondent.) (AH Rights Reserved.) London, Oct. 23. Admiral Sir Percy Scott, who died on Saturday, did more than any other sailor afloat to improve the gunnery of the British Fleet. Yet with the general public he first came into prominence in connection with the defence of Ladysmith. when, within a few hours, he rushed up naval guns to the support of the town. His devices for improving gunnery in all its branches were extremely ingenious, and some of them brought him a considerable fortune. Indeed, not very long ago he successfully sustained a claim in the law courts for royalties estimated to be worth anything from £150,000 to £200,000. He carried his inventive genius into private life, and designed an electric lawn mower, which is still in nee. Latterly he has devoted himself I*** a campaign against battleships. “What is the use of battleships?"’ was the question he asked, and he was answered to his own taste by a midshipman with the approving, “No use at all.”

HEALTHY CONTEMPT. Sir Percy joined the Britannia as a midshipman in 1874, and it is rather interesting to recall that one of his contemporaries on board the old training ship was the present Lord Ypres. The friendship which commenced then tndured throughout their lives, and Lord Ypres always took a sympathetic interest in Sir Percy Scott’s campaign for the improving of gunnery. Sir Percy brought the percentage of hits to meh a high figure that gunnery officers in the Grand Fleet came to entertain a healthy contempt for Allied warships. I remember, during the war. discussing with two of them the practice of the American Fleet in the Firth of Forth. We were watching the splashes as the shells fell all round y»e target. “I would net like to be near the target,"’ I com--jaented. "No.” observed one of the officers. drily, ‘T should feel much safer on it.” A MUCH NICER WAR. Our imaginations have been so harrowed by forecasts about the next big war, with its promiscuous serial chemical effects and universal gas masks, that a little consolation on the other side is welcome. A well-known hospital lecturer tells me that, at all events in one respect, the next war will be “much nicer.” More than ever the medical world pins its professional faith in inoculation as a cure-all for all the ills to which the human flesh is heir. And the next B-E-F. looks like being inoculated against most things short of bullets and high explosive shells. Our future Tommies will- I gather, almost certainly be inoculated against lice. It seems incredible to the ex-service layman, but so the doctors assert. So even the next war clouds will not be without their silver lining. • LORD SELBORNE.

Few politicians quite realise that , Selborne kept his 65th birthday this week. The noble earl looks and acts much younger than that. He certainly does not seem, as he really is, ten years senior to Lord Hugh Cecil. He isi an old Winchester boy who attained honours in history at Oxford, and, before becoming First Lord of the Admiralty, served as Parliamentary A.D.C. to a War Secretary and a Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was High Commissioner in South Africa, is an elder brother of Trinity House with permission to wear the ornate uniform thereof, and also a Lloyd’s Bank director. He belongs to Brooke’s, and is a diehard who, if ever we get a black shirt brigade of British Fascisti, would be pretty sure of a staff job. BARE FEET AND ROLLS CARS. Much surprise was expressed when the statement was made by Lord Thomson that Arab sheiks were racing about in Ford cars. There was =ome reason Ibi this surprise, though the Eastern peoples are not so unsophisticated as we think. There is much more reason for surprise at the general opinion that persists in’ this country about the peoples of our West African colonies. It is positively foolish, but it is largely due to missionary propaganda. Some missionaries seem to think that, unless they picture the people of Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, or the Gambia, as •‘poor, benighted heathens,” in bare feet, shuddering in rags, at the point of starvation, they will get no sympathy, and therefore no financial help. But there are West African natives who own Rolls Royce cars, and have magnificent houses. Missionary talk of this description, besides being untrue, is bad for trade. Some of our big merchants and traders on this side must feel positively murderous when they hear this sort of thing. The comparative few who are neither Christian nor Moslems are pagan, but they are negligible in number. In Nigeria, for instance, where the population is between 181 and 20 millions, probably 90 >er cent, are Mohammedans, whom it js Vi insult to call •‘heathens.” PLAY FOR GLADYS COOPER. Miss Gladys Cooper is to have a new day. It will be a dramatised version if Michael Arlen’s •‘The Green Bat.” Michael Arlen is the brilliant young Armenian, who lives in, and writes about Mayfair. Fair and slim and rather short, he lives the morning coat ■ nd evening dress life of the West End. &aid a friend to him one day about his “best seller”: •‘Your book is going extremely ■ welt” ‘"Absurdly so,” the author replied. BETTER ’OLE CLUB. fhe four Cadogan girls —called in icciety the “Four Horsemen”—are well inown for their beauty and horsemanship in the hunting field, and |he four laughters of the Earl and Countess Beauchamp are making something of a jensation in a similar way. Lady Letice Lygon, the oldest, has been a regulr follower of the Croome hounds. Lady Lettice, who is tall and fair, with a gentle expression in her grey eyes, ' is an exquisite figure of British beauty. 1 Lord Elm ley, her brother, and Lady Lettice formed at Walmer Castle what they called the ‘‘Better ’Ole Club.” Lord Beauchamp is Lord Warden of the ‘CTnque Ports, and Walmer Castle is his official residence. The club is a replica of a dug-out, and is located in

one of the dungeons of the castle. It has whitewashed walls and oil lamps. There they organise dances for young people. The visitors’ book contains many famous names. AN EASTERN BEAUTY. London is at the moment deeply smitten by the Celestial charm of Miss Anna May Wong, the clever lady who plays the Mongol slave in Drury Lane’s "Thief of Bagdad” film. It must be the very first time we have been captivated in this manner by an actress not of Aryan race. But “Two Yellow Willows,” which is what Miss Wong’s name means, justifies the notable exception. Slender, petite, exquisite, with ivory skin and black hair, her provocative Eastern eyes and sensitive nailpointed hands are Miss Wong’s finest points. Her acting has a cachet of subtle simplicity, and, for the moment, solid Western beauties of the Gladys Cooper type are eclipsed by this pale shadow from the East.

FREAK BILLIARDS. Mixed criticism is expressed of the “brighter billiards” match now being played in London between Newman and Smith. The idea is Newman’s. He thinks professional billiards may be made more attractive by his rules, which stipulate that, after being once petted off the top spot, the red ball goes on the pyramid spot, and that the player in hand must, instead of placing his ball anywhere within the D, play off one of the three spots on the D line. The professional critics of the game are not impressed, but the match arouses considerable interest, and is receiving Royal patronage. I am told that Smith, while agreeing to play Newman's freak game, describes it as “like asking Miss Joyce Wethered to play golf with a walking stick.” A BIG BETTING SLUMP. The past racing season will, I am told, long be remembered in betting circles as one of the worst on record. For one thing “form” has been excep«tionally difficult to weigh up, even for • real experts at the game, and has been I quite unusually upset time and again. Of probably five hundred private tipsters who were in business in London at the start of the year, there are now no more than a baker’s dozen left on their legs. This is attributed to a remarkable decline in small betting throughout the metropolitan area. Though the regular West End betting, in more or less substantial figures, showed no change worth speaking of, the slump in small betting has been sudden and impressive. The lesser bookmaking fraternity has suffered accordingly. The slump may be due either to unemployment, or to a widespread disillusion on the part of the astonishing post-war number of small women punters. WOMEN PUNTERS. I "Blue Peter” is such an intriguing i title for a play that it deserved a rather better one than the sentimental • melodrama to which it is attached at I the Princess Theatre. As most of us ; know, in these much-travelled days, the • “Blue Peter” is the flag, with a white ■ square to sail. The moment the moor- ’ ing ropes are cast off, or the anchor I raised, down comes the “Blue Peter.” I Brew states that “Peter” is a corrnpi tion of the French “pertir,” meaning i leave or notice of departure, but this ! seems another instance of ingenious i stymological invention, because, as old : salts will tell you, originally the “Blue , Peter” was not a flag of departure at all, {but a signal for the police to come aboard. ! Its association with stowaways discovered ;on the eve of sailing may have led to j its later significance.