A LONDON LETTER.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 149, 7 September 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

A LONDON LETTER.

Topics of the Day. LONDON, July 7. General Election Date. Members of the House of Commons are now more interested in when the present House will end than in anything it may do. The election cannot come before the new register is ready—at the beg'nning of next May—nor before the Finance Bi 1 for that year has been passed. The holidays and the hay and corn harvests must be avoided if possible. Accordingly the choice lies between the middle of May and early October. Though there arc disadvantages in open-air campaigning it is expected that the earlier date will be chosen. Nothing short of a grave Parliamentary crisis and none is conceivable at present, would justify an appeal to the country before the new voters — now legally enfranchised —are enabled to exercise their privilege. Ministerial Salaries Inquiry. Unless some one has the courage to “bell the cat" the suggested inquiry into Ministerial salaries is not likely to take place. The Government would like to see Mr William Graham’s motion about the Speakership expanded, but they do not care to make the proposal. The Socialist leaders are willing to extend the inquiry but they claim that it is no part of their business to take the necessary step. Thus a course which is general'y desired is in danger of being omitted. Mr Ramsay Macdonald, who has personal experience of the drawbacks of the present situation, dare not run the strong risk of being repudiated by his back-benchers, even though that is not a novel experience for him. Premier's First Election. Mr Baldwin never fails to captivate popular sentiment in his reminiscences of childhood, and his latest confidence is no exception to the rule. At a private luncheon and gathering of Conservative Party organisers, held in London, and attended by representatives from a’l parts of the country, the Prime Minister made an interesting re-' ference to his first appearance in political life. While still a baby, an election contest took place in his local constituency. On the day of the election, notwithstanding the fact that members of his family were supporting the Whip candidate, he was wheeled round the constituency in a perambu’ator by the cook, who was a staunch Conservative. True to her creed, the vehicle was profusely decorated with the Tory colours —colours to which the occupant has remained faithful ever since, added Mr Baldwin. Though the Prime Minister did not mention it, I should imagine that the cook must have been the same good dame wiio, after his birth, made haste to carry him upstairs to ensure his ascent in after life. Not content with taking him to the top storey of the house, she stood on a chair and pushed him through a trap door into the loft. Royal Rivalry. The acceptance by the King and Queen, of ihe invitation of the Prince of Wales to visit Nottinghamshire farm at Lenton is a reminder of the spirit of friend’y rivalry between the King and the Prince in producing and breeding stock for exhibition at the various agricultural shows. At Nottingham, where the Royal Show' is taking place this year, there will be an illustration of this endeavour to beat each other, for both His Majesty and the Prince have a number of entries. This is the first opportunity the King has had of visiting the Prince’s farm in the Midlands. The Prince has introduced many refinements in farming and cattle breeding, and the King has been anxious for some time past to see them for himself. The visit will probab’y take place on July 12, and the Prince hopes to be there to show his father over the farm. The Speaker. For the time being Mr Speaker is an absentee so far as residence at Westminster is concerned, and comes down to the House of Commons daily like ordinary members. It will be a fortnight or more before Captain and Mrs Fitzroy “move in" officially. This interval is necessary to enable the retiring Speaker and his successor to arrange respectively their changed domestic affairs. The Speaker’s House of Commons quarters are, despite the pecuParities of what Mr Lulu Harcourt

called “an uncomfortable gothic building," extremely pleasant, and command a fine river outlook. Apart from being about as conveniently central as any address in London, they arc probably the quietest anywhere in such a position. Within the lofty apartments set aside for Mr Speaker, no echo of Westminster’s teeming traffic sounds. The occupants might be living in the heart of sleepy Sussex.

Royal Pheasants Destroyed. Tragedy has befallen the brood of pheasants which were hatched in the grounds of Buckingham Palace recently. The whole of the brood have been destroyed—it is believed by a pair of carrion crows. The brood was hatched in one of the shrubberies not a great distance from the front of the Palace and when the birds began to wander over the lawn the Queen loved to watch them. Gradually their numbers diminished until a’l disappeared. Pheasants have frequented the grounds of the Palace for several years now. In the first instance they flew over from the St. James’ Park sanctuary, and on the King’s instructions they were allowed to remain. The King and Queen often fe dthe birds, and there is much interest to see if another pair will make the grounds their nesting place. Archbishop of Canterbury-

I am glad to see that those who are organising the tribute to the Archbishop of Canterbury to celebrate this,

his annus mirabilis—the year of his arch-episcopal semi-jubilee, his 80th birthday, and his golden wedding—stipulate that the greater part of the money should be used for the benefit of Dr. and Mrs Davidson. His salary is nominally £15,000 a year, but, in addition to taxation, it has to meet the upkeep of two antique picturesque and therefore expensive residences, abundant hospitality, and subscriptions to all manner of charities, ecclesiastical and social. Dr. Davidson is a man of modest private fortune, and 1 suspect that he has spent more than he has saved since he went to Lambeth. Under a recent arrangement he is entitled to a pension of about £1,500 a year, but no loyal member of the Church would like the idea of his having to live in a small suburban villa with financial anxiety hanging over him. I do not suppose Dr. and Mrs Davidson would mind in the least, but the Church ought to mind it. Sherry Once More. A West End wine merchant tells me that sherry is gradually emerging from the cloud under which it went when cocktails first became the fashionable aperitif. Sales of sherry fell away as those of gin and the two vermouths went up. Now, however, an increasing number of people arc returning to sherry as a preliminary to dinner and in private houses there is a faring off in the popularity of the cocktail. This, my informant suggests, is partly because a cocktail is a poor thing without ice, the procuring of which is a troublesome matter. Moreover few constitutions can stand too protracted a course of gin concoctions. It is the very dry sherries of which the sales arc increasing, and the belief that sherry as a predinner aperitif was out of date is being proved quite wrong. Tale of a Parrot This remarkable parrot ' story was narrated to me by a West End restaurateur, who wag willing to take his affidavit as to its entire accuracy. Two years ago he and his wife removed from a small flat to a more pretentious residence. With them went a parrot, who had occupied in his cage a front window of the flat, and amused his abundant leisure picking up the cries of various street hawkers. At the new home Poll was located at the back, and could hear no street noises at all. He gradually weened himself of low-down hawker cries, and lived well up to the standard of the polite suburb. Last week the restaurateur brought home some strawberries in a basket. The parrot watched his mistress unpack them for a moment or two, and then —two years after the memory—broke out into: “Fine ripe strawberries—strawberries —fine ripe strawberries I’’1 ’’ Shadows The latest cinema enterprise, “The Birth of the Film,” has human interest and real drama. It traces back to the Fantoscope of 1883, consisting of a spinning disc on a shutter, the earliest evolution of the modern movie picture. It reveals, too, the tragedy of FrieseGreene, the Englishman whose genius did the pioneer work that alone made post-war Hollywood possible. Ho so'd his original apparatus, when he was imprisoned for debt, for the sum of 255. Exactly 39 years ago, Friese-Greene produced the world’s first real motion picture. There is a quaint and sometimes pathetic interest about the first films shown publicly. What, for instance, has happened to the baby whose movie picture delighted cinema crowds in 1896? And what of those stalwart prewar Grenadiers, shown changing the guard at St. James’ Palace 32 years ago? Some of them may now wear the scar’et Waterloo tunics of Chelsea Pensioners, but most must be clicking noiseless heels amongt the brave phalanx of the shadows. The Turtle King. It will come as a surprise to most people that nearly all the turtle soup oaten in this country is made in an unpretentious factory down Limehouse way in the East End of London. The soup is made by a man, who has been importing West Indian green turtles for more than 60 years. Two or three times a week massive turtles are brought to his factory, hauled up on chain pulleys and dropped into groat tanks of water. The “turtle king," as he is called, is the greatest expert in the country on turtles, for he has nursed them since he was 12 years of age. They require a groat deal of attention for they catch co'd easily. Though turtles weigh anything from 40 pounds to three hundredweight they rarely yield much over 20 quarts of soup. Hence the fact that this delicacy cost? anything from 15s to 25s a quart. The soup is made from the white meat only, the green meat being cut up and boiled to serve with the soup. Tough!

In that wonderful StSvensoniau romance, “The Wrecker," readers may recall a notable and shrewd observe by its most likeable character. When Pinkerton’s partner, Loudon Dodd, is pondering a smuggling deal, solely in the interest of Pinkerton, who is sick and bankrupt, Captain Nares argues him out of the il'egality. And he doc» so on the subtle plea that the amount in any case is too trivial. “I fancy," says Nares, “If I found myself landed in jail for less than a million. 1 should feel kind of lonely when 1 woke up at night!" Somewhat similar reflections must surely oppress the two London urchins who broke the window of a Strand confectioner’s in the early hours of the morning, and were captured by an alert City Policeman, after a chase, in possession of a huge iced cake. The Strand onfectioner betrayed the youthful confidence of the thieves—the cake was a dummy.