BLUE BOOK HUMOUR

Taranaki Daily News, 23 November 1932, Page 10

BLUE BOOK HUMOUR

DIFFICULTY AT EMBASSY. THE SERVANTS’ CARS. Quaint and novel statements are contained in the evidence given before the British' Public Accounts Committee, says a writer in the Observer, London. Here are some of them:— The new Embassy in Washington appears to be the subject of violent controversy. Half of those who know it say that it is inconvenient and a failure; Lady Lindsay, the wife of the Ambassador, says she considers it the most “divine” residence in which she has ever lived.

Admittedly there is trouble, over inadequate garaging accommodation. Not because of visitors. It is because “practically it is almost impossible to keep a superior servant in America now rmless yon can house his car. You cannot get a cook unless you are prepared to house his car; they all have cars; every one of them.” When a manufacturer brings tobacco Into Britain he pays duty on the whole of it, the leaf and the stalk. When he manufacturers his tobacco, he takes tho stalk out of the leaf. The stalk he then grinds up and presents to the customs for drawback. Unfortunately, very few people want these tobacco stalks, and when the customs cannot sell them it dumps them on the Essex marshes. The State is not over-generous in paying gratuities to the Coastguards Services and to the members of the Life-Saving Apparatus Companies for life-saving. The gratuity is £1 for each life saved, distributed among all those who take part in saving them. Canada is building up its own manu-

factures, but there is one thing is cannot make—rockets for life-saving apparatus. All these are made in England and sold to Canada.

There is evidently a great deal of dif-

ference of opinion at .the National Gallery as to the effective lighting of pictures. According to Sir Lionel Earle, of the Office of Works, “Lord Lee of Fareham never thinks a picture is decently lit unless you have the whole of the centre of the room dark.” It is admitted that the trustees are divided and are experimenting to see what can be done to satisfy everybody. Early this year 13 members of Parliament were not drawing their salaries, while others had accepted a voluntary deduction. About 550 members of Parliament use the travel facilities.

There are so many British employees In France connected with the Imperial War Graves Commission that a woman doctor has been appointed, with a nurse as her assistant, to go round visiting the staff and their families.

The Army has so much surplus coloured dress cloth that it cherishes the hope that it can unload some of it on Hollywood for ‘the purposes of dressing scenes. There has been a great rim on threepenny pieces in England recently, because of the unemployment rates; threepence comes into the new rate and it saves trouble to • pay out threepenny pieces.